Tempting though it might be to try and build a regression model to predict who might qualify from this year’s two semi-finals, that would be a lot of work. And hard. But mostly too much a lot of work. Instead, we’ve decided to look at past experiences qualifying from either of the two semi-finals for any year’s Grand Final.

Here are some of the key consideration that inform this analysis:

• We looked at each country’s record qualifying from any semi-finals, including the monster semis from 2004-2007
• However, we started with 2008, for parsing lists of qualifiers the first year of two semi-finals each producing 10 qualifiers
• We did not count being pre-qualified for a Grand Final as a qualification
• We ignored the “wild card” rules of 2008 and 2009 and used instead the 10 highest ranked entries in those semi-finals, rather than the 10 qualified finalists

Those were our guiding principles.

Next, we went back to each year’s semi-final scoreboards from 2008-2015 to see how each place in the performing sequence did. Most years these slots were randomly assigned; the last few years we’ve had the awful “producer-led draw”. However, rather than focus on scores or rankings we simply used “not qualified” (zero) and “qualified) (one). Because for this analysis, that’s the focus: getting over this first hurdle towards a potential win overall.

Finally, we did a really statistically lazy thing: we merely averaged the percentage of qualifications (by the country/broadcaster) with the percentage of entries from that spot in the sequence having qualified. Let’s jump in…

Semi-final One

Here’s our data crunching for the first semi-final:

Slot	Country	Artist	Song	Slot qual	Country qual	Average
1	Finland	Sandhja	Sing It Away	25%	60%	43%
2	Greece	Argo	Utopian Land	63%	100%	81%
3	Moldova	Lidia Isac	Falling Stars	25%	70%	48%
4	Hungary	Freddie	Pioneer	13%	83%	48%
5	Croatia	Nina Kraljić	Lighthouse	50%	44%	47%
6	Netherlands	Douwe Bob	Slow Down	63%	25%	44%
7	Armenia	Iveta Mukuchyan	LoveWave	75%	88%	82%
8	San Marino	Serhat	I Didn’t Know	50%	16%	33%
9	Russia	Sergey Lazarev	You Are the Only One	63%	100%	81%
10	Czech Republic	Gabriela Gunčíková	I Stand	63%	0%	31%
11	Cyprus	Minus One	Alter Ego	13%	40%	26%
12	Austria	Zoë	Loin d’ici	75%	33%	54%
13	Estonia	Jüri Pootsmann	Play	63%	42%	52%
14	Azerbaijan	Samra	Miracle	88%	100%	94%
15	Montenegro	Highway	The Real Thing	63%	29%	46%
16	Iceland	Greta Salóme	Hear Them Calling	75%	66%	71%
17	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Dalal & Dean feat. Ana Rucner & Jala	Ljubav je	63%	100%	81%
18	Malta	Ira Losco	Walk on Water	50%	44%	47%

Next we plotted the distribution of the averages. This isn’t a Gaussian distribution, but we wouldn’t expect it to be anyways: different years had different numbers of entries in a semi-final, different countries participated, and each year is its own statistical event.

We subsequently looked for points across these averages at which we could break the distribution down with some typology of performance. In the end we settled on:

Level	Range
Poor	0-35%
Marginal	36-46%
Good	47-70%
Excellent	71=100%

For semi-final one we get the following distribution: three (3) poor, five marginal, five good and five excellent. See below:

Slot	Country	Average	Prediction
1	Finland	43%	Marginal
2	Greece	81%	Excellent
3	Moldova	48%	Good
4	Hungary	48%	Good
5	Croatia	47%	Good
6	Netherlands	44%	Marginal
7	Armenia	82%	Excellent
8	San Marino	33%	Poor
9	Russia	81%	Excellent
10	Czech Republic	31%	Poor
11	Cyprus	26%	Poor
12	Austria	54%	Marginal
13	Estonia	52%	Marginal
14	Azerbaijan	94%	Excellent
15	Montenegro	46%	Marginal
16	Iceland	71%	Good
17	Bosnia and Herzegovina	81%	Excellent
18	Malta	47%	Good

From this, our qualifiers would be: Greece, Moldova, Hungary, Croatia, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Iceland, Bosnia & Hercegovina and Malta.

Second Semi-final

Using the same approach for the Thursday night show, we get:

Slot	Country	Artist	Song	Slot qual	Final qual	Average
1	Latvia	Justs	Heartbeat	63%	36%	49%
2	Poland	Michał Szpak	Color of Your Life	38%	33%	35%
3	Switzerland	Rykka	The Last of Our Kind	38%	20%	29%
4	Israel	Hovi Star	Made of Stars	75%	42%	59%
5	Belarus	Ivan	Help You Fly	25%	33%	29%
6	Serbia	Sanja Vučić ZAA	Goodbye (Shelter)	75%	71%	73%
7	Ireland	Nicky Byrne	Sunlight	38%	50%	44%
8	Macedonia	Kaliopi	Dona (Дона)	50%	42%	46%
9	Lithuania	Donny Montell	I’ve Been Waiting for This Night	38%	55%	46%
10	Australia	Dami Im	Sound of Silence	50%	n/a	50%
11	Slovenia	ManuElla	Blue and Red	50%	33%	42%
12	Romania	Ovidiu Anton	Moment of Silence	50%	100%	75%
13	Bulgaria	Poli Genova	If Love Was a Crime	88%	11%	49%
14	Denmark	Lighthouse X	Soldiers of Love	75%	73%	74%
15	Ukraine	Jamala	1944	63%	100%	81%
16	Norway	Agnete	Icebreaker	50%	78%	64%
17	Georgia	Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz	Midnight Gold	63%	75%	69%
18	Albania	Eneda Tarifa	Fairytale	50%	55%	53%
19	Belgium	Laura Tesoro	What’s the Pressure	38%	27%	32%

Next we plotted the distribution of the averages, using the same typology:

Level	Range
Poor	0-35%
Marginal	36-46%
Good	47-70%
Excellent	71=100%

For semi-final two we get the following distribution: four (4) poor, six marginal, four good and four excellent. And one wildcard: Australia, which hasn’t yet competed in a semi-final. See below:

Slot	Country	Average	Predict
1	Latvia	49%	Good
2	Poland	35%	Poor
3	Switzerland	29%	Poor
4	Israel	59%	Good
5	Belarus	29%	Poor
6	Serbia	73%	Excellent
7	Ireland	44%	Marginal
8	Macedonia	46%	Marginal
9	Lithuania	46%	Marginal
10	Australia	50%	Good*
11	Slovenia	42%	Marginal
12	Romania	75%	Excellent
13	Bulgaria	49%	Marginal
14	Denmark	74%	Excellent
15	Ukraine	81%	Excellent
16	Norway	64%	Good
17	Georgia	69%	Good
18	Albania	53%	Marginal
19	Belgium	32%	Poor

From this, our qualifiers would be: Latvia, Israel, Serbia, Romania, Denmark, Ukraine, Norway and Georgia. That’s only 8. Given how well Australia did across Europe with both televoters and juries in 2015, we grade them as a Good*. Still only gives us 9 qualifiers.

We have two “marginal” countries – Lithuania and Macedonia – at the top of their band (46%). I would err on the side of weighting the country score—which is significantly reflective of what sorts of resources go into selecting and promoting an entrant in any given year—over the slot score. That puts Lithuania ahead of Macedonia.

However…

This analysis does not take into account anything else, such as song quality, profile of artist, or diaspora or regional voting blocs. Fear not: we are also crunching those numbers. We will look at numerous attributes of entries and artists, including what we can glean from national finals and pre-Contest live performances.

Stay tuned!