A picture speaks a thousand words. The image above shows the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest top ten and the pre-qualified countries for 2008. Countries from Western Europe looking at the scoreboard need look no higher than 18th on the Scoreboard! Sweden 18th, Germany 19th, Spain 20th, France 22nd, United Kingdom 23rd and Ireland 24th.

For the first time in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, there are no Scandinavian countries in the Eurovision Song Contest final. Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden will all need to qualify from the semi final. Only the Big Four are already flying the flag for Western Europe in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest final, and they must fear how many others will join them.

The semi final results did show that Portugal, mainland Europe's western-most point were just three points away from taking Moldova's place in the final. Andorra were only 11 points from qualification, and Iceland only three behind them in 13th place.

but we can see that Malta, Belgium and Austria failed to score many votes from North, South, East or Western Europe. with 15, 14, and 4 respectively.

Netherlands scored a total of 38 points, all from the Western countries. Not a single vote for a Edsilia Rombley from the East. Only Hungary from Central Europe sent The Netherlands points.

DQ from Denmark scored a total of 45 points, 42 from Western Europe and three from winners, Serbia.

Iceland scored 77 points, 46 came from fellow Scandinavian countries, with 10 from Denmark and 12 from Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Only 4 of the 10 countries Germany voted for in the semi final qualified, and only 5 of the United Kingdom's top ten. 6 of France's top ten went through along with 7 out of 10 songs voted for by Spain qualified.