BACKGROUND: Finland’s entry will take part in the first semi-final on May 20th
|
|
|
By Jussi Ahlroth
Teräsbetoni will be representing Finland in the first Eurovision Song Contest semi-final, to be held in the Serbian capital Belgrade on Tuesday, May 20th.
A total of 43 countries are taking part, with 38 qualifying for the final through two semi-finals and five (the “Big Four” of Germany, France, Spain and the UK, plus hosts Serbia) getting a bye into the final, which will contain a total of 25 entries (10 +10 +5).
The 38 semi-finalists have been divided into two groups of 19, with the first taking the stage on the 20th and the second group televised on Thursday, May 22nd. The final itself will be on Saturday 24th.
The division into two semi-finals has been carried out using regionalised seeding pots in such a way as to minimise the effect of neighbouring countries giving “friendship” or “you scratch my back...” votes - one of the standard gripes about the entire Eurovision Song Contest ritual.
Finland’s co-competitors in Semi-final I are: Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, San Marino, and Slovenia.
The Finns were put into Pot 2 along with fellow-Nordics Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, and neighbours-to-the-south Estonia, all of which have had a habit in the past of voting for one another out of a kind of local tribal loyalty.
Now at least this incestuous effect can be kept in check, as countries can only vote for nations in their own semi-final.
The Swedes, Danes, and Icelanders will all be in the second semi-final, but the Finns can probably expect a bit of a leg-up from Estonia, Russia, and the Norwegians.
Similar obvious regional groupings included “The Balkans” thrown together into Pot 1, and a seven-nation collection of former Soviet republics, Russia, and Israel in Pot 5. Block voting here was also quite handily halved.
Other group pots were rather less successful at their task. They looked on the surface to be a mish-mash of countries with little geographical logic to them, but hidden inside the half-dozen were certain tight pairings or larger linkages, for instance the pot containing Belgium and The Netherlands, Cyprus and Greece, and Bulgaria and Turkey.
This one, for instance, failed to separate the Belgians and the Dutch or the Turks and Bulgarians from each other, and the same happened with a group that contained Latvia and Lithuania among a motley collection of other countries - the Latvians and Lithuanians both ended up in the second semi-final, where they will probably give each other a generous helping hand.
As well as the other eighteen semi-finalists being able to vote for a given country’s entry, two of the “automatic finalists” get to vote in each case.
In Finland’s semi-final it will be Spain and Germany, and in the second semi-final it will be France and the UK, along with hosts Serbia.
Countries are not actually obliged to broadcast both semi-finals - only the one they are taking part in.
The same goes for those five countries not taking part except in a voting capacity - the Germans only have to broadcast the first semi-final, in which they have a voting interest.
The good news for the Finns and their representatives Teräsbetoni is that Germany are on board in the first semi-final: the Germans, or at least the older Teutons, rather like their heavy metal.
It would have been even better if the British voters had also been in there instead of the Spanish, but you can’t have everything, can you?
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.3.2008
More on this subject:
 Heavy band Teräsbetoni unfazed over stigma from Eurovision entry victory
Teräsbetoni take narrow win in Finnish Eurovision finals
COMMENT: What will Europe make of "Huh Hah"?
Serbian organisation on schedule
Links:
Eurovision Song Contest, Belgrade, 2008 (Wikipedia)
Official ESC site
JUSSI AHLROTH / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi.ahlroth@hs.fi
|
|
