The second semi final of the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest was held tonight. Another ten songs qualified for the final, among them many fan favourites like the ones from Iceland, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine. Let�s take a general look on the statistics concerning this heat.
You can find the analysis of the first semi final here.
Winners
Some countries were indeed successful and will have been in every Eurovision Song Contest final since 2004 after Saturday: Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine. Others were successful after some bad results: Iceland made it to the final for the first time since 2004 and Portugal for the first time at all. Albania is in the final for the first time since 2005. Furthermore, if Portugalisn't thejury joker, it means the first Portuguese top ten placing since 1996 and only eighth top ten placing overall in 42 years of participation. Georgia qualified again during its second participation. Croatia qualified again after not having been in a Eurovision Song Contest final for the first time ever last year.
Losers
Some countries are bound to go through “bad patches”: Cyprus does not proceed to the final for the third year in a row, Belarus for the fourth time in five years, Switzerland and Lithuania for the third time in five years. Furthermore, F.Y.R. Macedonia did not make it to the final for the first time ever since semi finals were introduced and the Czech Republic did not qualify on its first two participations.
Running order
When it comes to the running order, we can see some surprises: Like in the first semi final, the song at #2 made it to the final (which had never happened before) but in this semi final, even the song from #3 made it. Can we see a curse being broken? Furthermore, the first four songs performed made it to the final, while only one song from the last five qualified. Six of the ten qualifiers performed in the second half.
Songs and singers
Six of the ten songs that qualified are performed in English, the other four languages we will here in the final are Turkish, Albanian, Croatian and Portuguese. That means that in the final, only 13 of the 25 songs will be performed entirely in English. When it comes to the singers, the qualifiers are five female soloists, one duo, three groups and one male soloist which is statistically an almost perfect reflection of the contest’s history.
Geographical notes
With both semi finals being over, we can see that all five Nordic countries in the competition qualified for the final. The last time that all these countries were together in one final was in 2000. From the five former Yugoslav countries in the semi finals, only two made it to the final where they meet the pre-qualified number six, Serbia.Tenof the former USSR countriescompeted in the semi finals and six of them made it to the final.