Adrian Kavanagh's Blog

Adrian Kavanagh, December 23rd 2014 

The official Eurovision website confirmed on 23rd December 2014 that 39 countries were to take part in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria. This means that 33 countries will be taking part in the two semi-finals – 16 in one semi-final and 17 in the other – making semi final qualification a slightly more difficult prospect than it was in 2014, when the smallest ever semi-final in contest history (the second semi-final which involved just 15 countries) took place.

This would have amounted to two more countries than the number that took part in the 2014 contest in Copenhagen, Denmark. However, the news released on 10th February 2015 that Australia would be participating on a one-off basis in the 2015 contest means that 40 countries will now be competing in Vienna. Australia will – as with the Hosts and Big 5 countries – not have to participate in one of the semi finals (meaning the semi-final format remains the same despite Australia’s late entry) and will instead proceed directly to the Final. Australia will get to vote in the Final, but also in both of the semi-finals – which is not the case for the states in the Big 5 and Hosts grouping as these only get to vote in one of the semi-finals.

Sadly, due to the political and economic stiuation in that state, Ukraine will be the one country out of those that took part in the 2014 contest that will not be amongst those countries competing for the big prize in 2015. Ukraine have undoubtedly been the most consistent of the Eurovision counties over the past decade. They won the contest on one occasion (in 2004), but also achieved three other Top 3 finishes, one other Top 5 finish and three other Top 10 finishes over the same period, while achieving a 100% qualification record out of each of the nine Eurovision semi-finals that they took part in between 2004 and 2014.

On a more positive note, both Cyprus and Serbia return after a one year absence from the contest, while the Czech Republic make a somewhat surprising (but no less welcome) return to Eurovision, having been out of the contest for five years since their last participation in the contest in the 2009 semi-final. With San Marino and Montenegro having qualified for the final for the first time in 2014, the Czech Republic will be the only participants in 2015 that have not yet succeeded in qualifying out of a Eurovision semi-final (excluding, of course, the “Big 5” countries who automatically qualify for the final).

This means that 33 countries will participate in the two Eurovision Song Contest semi finals on 19th and 21st May, with 16 countries to take part in Semi Final 1 and 17 countries to take part in Semi Final 2. Ten countries will qualify from each of these two semi-finals and join the hosts (Austria) and the “Big 5” countries (Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, France and Germany) in the Final on Saturday 23rd May 2015.

The 40 countries that will take part in Eurovision 2015 – and their acts/songs – are listed below. At this point, all of the forty countries (100.0%) have selected their Eurovision acts and songs. Montenegro, Australia, San Marino, Azerbaijan, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Montenegro, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Romania, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Slovenia, Finland, Moldova, Ireland, Albania, Israel, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Serbia, Italy, Iceland, Armenia, Denmark, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, Switzerland, France, Georgia, Spain, Belarus, Malta, The Netherlands and FYR Macedonia have now also presented their songs for the contest. (The song that was selected to be sung by Elhaida Dani, Diell, to represent Albania in December 2014 was withdrawn on 23rd February 2015. Elhaida will now perform a different song, I’m Alive, for Albania in Vienna and this song was presented on March 15th.) On 17th March it was announced that the title of Armenia’s song would change from Don’t Deny to Face The Shadow.

Further details will be added to the list above as and when other national Eurovision selections have taken place.

Details on which semi-finals the 33 countries, who do not directly qualify for the final, will be taking part in have now been added to the above list after the semi final allocation draw took place on 26th January 2015.

This entry was posted on December 23, 2014 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Eurovision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.