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EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2009 FORMAT
In 2008, the qualification process for the Eurovision Song Contest final was changed to include two semi-finals, each producing ten qualifiers who then joined the host country and the "Big 4" financial contributors (France, Germany, Spain and the U.K.) in the final. Despite the cost involved in staging an extra show, the change was widely perceived as a success and it will be repeated in Moscow.
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After a debate as to whether the "Big 4" would continue to gain an automatic qualification, it was confirmed that once again these countries will go straight to the final in Moscow, although perhaps for the last time.
One major change to the rules for 2009 will see the return of juries to the contest, but only in the final and only in conjunction with public voting. Since 1997, when it was trialled in five countries, the votes awarded by each country have generally been determined by a public televote. However in recent years the impact of neighbourly and diaspora voting has been seen as distorting the results.
In this year's final, countries will be asked to vote using a 50/50 mix of an "expert jury" (made up of music professionals) and a public televote. The jury will consist of five members and who are not connected with any of the entries in the contest and who provide an age and gender balance. The jury and the televote will each select a Top 10 and these separate votes will then be combined to produce an overall Top 10 which will be allocated points in the traditional Eurovision fashion, with each country awarding 12 points to its favourite.
Unlike in previous years, the jury members, who will be known in advance of the contest will not vote on every song, instead they will each pick their top ten, based on the performance in the second dress rehearsal (on Friday evening). The votes will then be added together and the total jury total vote compiled. These will then be added to the normal public televote which will happen during the live event. You can read more about the voting procedure here.
The process in the semi-final will remain as in 2008, with public televotes choosing nine of the ten qualifiers from each semi-final and the results of the reserve juries choosing the tenth finalist. Consequently, once again there will be 25 countries competing in the final in Moscow.
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On the right you can see the map of Europe with countries coloured in line with their participation in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.
In addition to the countries participating in the first semi-final, Germany, and the United Kingdom will transmit the show live and will vote in the first semi-final, while France, Spain and host nation Russia will transmit and vote in the second semi-final. Ten countries from each semi-final will join the five automatic finalists in the Eurovision final on May 16th. All show will begin at 20.00GMT (23.00 Moscow time). |
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On January 30th, the semi-final allocation draw took place in the Mariott Aurora Hotel in downtown Moscow. The countries which will compete in the semi-finals, were each selected from six pots based on geography and previous voting history. On March 16th, the draw for the running order was made at the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow and it was also confirmed that Georgia had withdrawn from the contest rather than change the lyrics of their song which were in breach of the rules. As Georgia had been allocated a to the first semi-final, there will now only be 18 countries in the first semi-final, while 19 countries (including Ireland) will compete in the second semi.
| 1st SEMI-FINAL (TUESDAY MAY 12th) | 2nd SEMI-FINAL (THURSDAY MAY 14th) | ||||||||||
| 1 |  |
MONTENEGRO | 10 |  |
ISRAEL | 1 |  |
CROATIA | 10 |  |
SLOVENIA |
| 2 |  |
CZECH REPUBLIC | 11 |  |
BULGARIA | 2 |  |
IRELAND | 11 |  |
HUNGARY |
| 3 |  |
BELGIUM | 12 |  |
ICELAND | 3 |  |
LATVIA | 12 |  |
AZERBAIJAN |
| 4 |  |
BELARUS | 13 |  |
FYR MACEDONIA | 4 |  |
SERBIA | 13 |  |
GREECE |
| 5 |  |
SWEDEN | 14 |  |
ROMANIA | 5 |  |
POLAND | 14 |  |
LITHUANIA |
| 6 |  |
ARMENIA | 15 |  |
FINLAND | 6 |  |
NORWAY | 15 |  |
MOLDOVA |
| 7 |  |
ANDORRA | 16 |  |
PORTUGAL | 7 |  |
CYPRUS | 16 |  |
ALBANIA |
| 8 |
|
SWITZERLAND | 17 |  |
MALTA | 8 |  |
SLOVAKIA | 17 |  |
UKRAINE |
| 9 |  |
TURKEY | 18 |  |
BOSNIA-HERZ. | 9 |  |
DENMARK | 18 |  |
ESTONIA |
| 19 |  |
NETHERLANDS | |||||||||
The draw for these five automatic finalists was also made on March 16th. France will be performing third in the final, Russia at tenth, Germany at number seventeen, the United Kingdom as number twenty three and Spain will close the final at number twenty five.
It has been confirmed that the rehearsal scheme will be the same as in Belgrade, with the first individual rehearsals starting with the first nine countries from the first semi-final on Sunday May 3rd. Ireland's first rehearsal will be early on the morning of Tuesday May 5th. The timing of the dress rehearsals and for the live shows will be of course be later, due to the time difference.
You can now find the full rules of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest here.