SVT, the Swedish national broadcaster has informed esctoday.com that the running order for the 2013 Eurovision semi-finals will be determined by SVT and announced in April. As of this year there will be no draw to determine the running order of the participants in the competition, this task will lie in the hands of the producers of the show, the host broadcaster.

A special draw was held yesterday at the City Hall in Malmö in order to determine which countries will compete in which semi-final and what half of the semi-final the countries will compete. There was also another draw held to place the Big 5 Countries and the host country Sweden in one of the two semi-finals (determining which semi-final each country will broadcast and vote in).

The 2013 Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals are scheduled to be held on the 14 and 16 May in Malmö. Whilst the grand final is scheduled for 18 May. 16 countries will compete in semi-final 1 and 17 countries will compete in Semi- final 2.

BIG 5 AND HOST COUNTRY – SEMI-FINAL ALLOCATION FOR BROADCASTING AND VOTING

•  France – Second semi-final
•  Germany – Second semi-final
•  Spain – Second semi-final
•  United Kingdom – First semi-final
•  Sweden – First semi-final
•  Italy – First semi-final

SEMI-FINAL 1

FIRST HALF	SECOND HALF
Denmark	Lithuania
Croatia	Serbia
Ukraine	Ireland
The Netherlands	Belarus
Austria	Cyprus
Slovenia	Montenegro
Estonia	Belgium
Russia	Moldova

SEMI-FINAL 2

FIRST HALF	SECOND HALF
Latvia	Israel
Azerbaijan	Norway
Malta	Albania
Iceland	Hungary
San Marino	Switzerland
FYR Macedonia	Georgia
Finland	Greece
Bulgaria	Armenia
	Romania