Intro Post

< 2007 Final | 2008 Semifinals | 2008 Final >

We’ve heard 29 songs out of 37 (36 if Israel withdraws) for Eurovision 2024! I plan on releasing “Unorganized predictions and hopes for Eurovision 2024 (Volume 3)” within the next few days.

Introduction

If you thought Eurovision 2007 had an overly huge lineup of countries, then 2008 was even crazier. All countries from 2007 returned except for Austria, and two made their debut: the oft-forgotten microstate of San Marino, and the controversial Caucasus country of Azerbaijan. This meant that singers representing 43 countries would go to Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) and battle for the grand prize. The map of Europe was now complete, except for two microstates (Liechtenstein and Vatican City) and the disputed country of Kosovo, which declared independence three months before the contest. The only new country that has joined since then is Australia.

The 2007 semifinal had 28 countries compete for ten slots, which was a death sentence for any country without enough bloc voting partners. To prevent this from happening again, the EBU overhauled the format for 2008. From this year onwards, only the Big Four and the host country qualified straight to the finals, whereas the other countries were split across two semifinals. These 38 countries were divided into six pots based on bloc voting patterns, so that half of each pot would go to semifinal 1, and the other half to semifinal 2. The participants in semifinal 1 were not allowed to vote in semifinal 2, and vice versa. The Big Four and host country could only vote in one semifinal each: as decided by a random draw, Spain and Germany voted in the first one, and the UK, France, and Serbia voted in the second. All participating countries got to vote in the final.

Ten countries were picked to qualify from each semifinal: the top nine were determined from televoting, and the tenth using backup juries. But in the grand final, the results were once again pure televoting (except San Marino, which used backup juries). Though the voting would get tweaked in later years, especially regarding the presence of juries, the two-semifinal format has remained the same. After the problem of too many participating countries began in 1993, the EBU finally found a good solution. Some fans aren’t happy about the Big Five rule, but otherwise the two-semifinal system works like a charm.

For some reason, uploads of the 2008 semifinals are tough to find online, especially those with commentary. NRK came to the rescue and has the entire broadcast on their website with Norwegian commentary, so long as I have a VPN set to Norway. Expect a lot of “the Norwegian commentator said something about ABBA and Bobbysocks”. Actually, I’ve been referring to commentators by their names as of late, and her name is Hanne Hoftun.