Adrian Kavanagh, 11 May 2011
It’s the day after the first Eurovision semi final and a number of the stronger countries over the past decade have failed to make it to the final, most notably Armenia and Turkey, but also Norway, Portugal, Albania and Croatia. The die was probably cast for Armenia and Turkey some months back when the semi final draw allocations meant that countries with large Armenian and Turkish diaspora, such as Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, would not be voting in their semi final. So what about Ireland ahead of tonight’s key dress rehearsal (which the juries will be voting on) and tomorrow night’s show ? The draw augurs poorly for us in that some of our stronger supporters in Eurovision over the past decade and a half – most notably our good neighbours, the UK, but also countries such as Turkey, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway and Switzerland – will not get the chance to cast votes for us in this semi final. So where oh where can we hope to pick up points? In this post I will look at the likelihood of winning points from each of the 21 other countries that will be voting in our semi final – the other semi finalists and also the three “Big 5” countries allocated a vote for this semi final. I will solely focus on voting patterns since the introduction of “full-blown” televoting in 1998. (more…)
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