Adrian Kavanagh, 23rd March 2014
Having finished “Playing With Numbers”, ORF, the Austrian television producers, who are hosting this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, have today announced the semi-final running order allocations for the two semi-finals in this year’s contest. (As of the past few years, there is no longer a draw to determine positions in the running orders of Eurovision semi-finals and finals – with the exception of one to determine whether acts will perform in the first or second half of a contest – with the exception of position taken up by the Host country in the Final. Instead, the host television producer decides on the running order, ostensibly to make sure that different types of acts are balanced throughout the running order in order to improvement the entertainment value of the show. This is – I would argue – an overtly large level of power to give to the host producers, given that statistics show that an act’s chances of doing well at Eurovision can be significantly helped/hindered by their position in the show’s running order.)
Figure 1: Average points per position in the running order at Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals between 2008 and 2014
Ireland has been allocated the second position in the running order for Semi Final 2, being scheduled to perform just after Lithuania, who open the show, and San Marino, who will perform third on the night. (more…)
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