Eurovision 2025: Semi-Final 1 Results Analysis

Fifteen countries competed in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, yet only ten could qualify for the final. In the end, the difference between tenth and eleventh place was just two points, so clearly every vote mattered for those countries on the borderline. With that being the case, it seems only fair to delve a bit deeper into the results of this semi-final and take a look at some of the stories and underlying trends that got lost in Eurovision week itself.

As with all Eurovision semi-finals since 2023, the results were determined solely by televoting in each participating country, as well as a set of pre-determined automatic qualifiers (in this semi-final, these were Italy, Spain and Switzerland) and an aggregated ‘Rest of the World’ vote. The only exception to the televoting rule is San Marino, which is unable to organise its own televote as it shares Italy’s telephone network, so a jury vote was used instead. Now that disclaimer is out of the way, let’s have a look at the headline figures.

Ukraine won this semi-final with a total of 137 points (7.61 points per voting country), followed by Albania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Estonia. The other countries to qualify for the final were Iceland, Poland, Norway, Portugal and San Marino, finishing with 46 points (2.56 points per voting country). Right behind them but ultimately missing out were Cyprus with 44 points, followed by Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium and Azerbaijan, who picked up the wooden spoon with just 7 points (0.39 points per voting country).

As was the general theme this year, the votes in this semi-final were far more widely spread than we have seen previously. For comparison, the winners of the first semi-final in both 2023 and 2024 scored 177 points with the same number of voting countries. Last year, Ziferblat’s score of 137 would have landed them in third place (although, confusingly, they would have been behind fellow Ukrainians Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil), whilst in 2023 they would have just edged out Loreen for second place.

Ukraine scored four sets of 12 points, and finished in the top three with nine countries overall. Cyprus and Portugal both gave maximum marks to Ukraine, having also done so in the semi-final last year. Poland continued their track record of giving Ukraine 12 points in the televote whenever possible since 2018, and Spain also gave Ziferblat the douze points. Ukraine scored points from every voting country in this semi-final, and their qualification record remains unblemished, with an impressive 15/15 qualifications since 2004.

Albania finished second in this semi-final with 122 points, once again receiving points from every voting country; their lowest score being 1 point from the Sammarinese jury. This was Albania’s joint-highest position ever in a Eurovision semi-final, matching Rona Nishliu’s achievement from 2012. Albania only picked up one set of 12 points, and that came from the Rest of the World vote, continuing a trend of the country scoring highly from this vote whenever they send something worth voting for (sorry Besa).

Shkodra Elektronike finished in the top three with eight voting countries, including perennial allies Croatia, Italy and Switzerland, and their qualification continues a nice pattern of Albania making the final if and only if they send a song (entirely) in Albanian; this has been the case every year now since 2016. Excluding 2022’s “Sekret”, which blended Albanian and English lyrics, the last time Albania qualified with a song in English was 2015, with “I’m Alive”, and the last time the country failed to qualify with a song in Albanian was all the way back in 2013.

Right behind Albania on 121 points was Claude from the Netherlands, who certainly outperformed my expectations in this televote-only semi-final. He couldn’t, however, replicate this success in the televote on Saturday night, but that’s something I’ll talk about another day. Again, the Netherlands scored points from every voting country, with a surprisingly low score from the Sammarinese jury. Claude’s two sets of 12 points came from Belgium and Switzerland, both countries with French-speaking populations who may have connected more with the French lyrics of the song.

Like Albania, the Netherlands finished in the top three with eight voting countries, including both of the other countries from its allocation draw ‘pot’. This year marked the Netherlands’ first appearance in a Eurovision final since 2022, following the Joost debacle last year, and means that the country now has a 50% qualification rate (if we include 2024 as a qualification), and also marked the country’s fifth top three finish in a semi-final, which includes four since 2019; highlighting the Netherlands’ status as a current Eurovision powerhouse.

In the final, it was Sweden that earned the best result of the qualifiers from this semi-final, yet they could only manage fourth on Tuesday night, coming in just behind the Netherlands on 118 points. KAJ received points from every televoting country, only failing to score from the Sammarinese jury. This is one of two particularly curious results we’ll discuss here, given that Sweden finished third in the final televote, but it is worth noting that this field ended up being particularly close at the top. Nonetheless, Sweden extended the qualification streak that they have held since 2011, and now have a 93% qualification rate, only tarnished by Anna Bergendahl in 2010 (sorry Anna).

Sweden received maximum marks from fellow Northern European nations Estonia, Iceland and Norway, and generally scored a lot better in the North and West of the continent than the South and East, including strong showings in Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and with the Rest of the World vote. For most countries, this would be a great result, but for Sweden, the favourites to win the whole thing, and particularly the favourites to win this televote-only semi-final, this must be slightly disappointing. I mentioned this briefly in my previous analysis, but I really think this song fell victim to its own hype in the end.

Estonia’s result in this semi-final also piqued my interest: the country finished second with the televote in the final, only behind Israel, yet only finished fifth in the semi-final. Again, the field was very close, and Tommy Cash was still less than ten points behind Albania in second place, but it still feels very curious. Estonia are the last country in this semi-final to have received points from every voting country, and finished in the top three with seven of those, including second place with the Sammarinese jury.

Estonia only received one set of 12 points, and that came from Croatia, who also awarded them maximum marks in the final. Despite the presence of Slovenia in this semi-final, Tommy Cash clearly caught more people’s attention; maybe the country that gave us Baby Lasagna last year was still feeling the silly vibe of “Espresso macchiato”. This was Estonia’s fourth consecutive qualification, marking the country’s longest ever qualification streak. Estonia’s qualification record now stands at 52%, marking the first time this has ever risen above 50%.

In sixth place was Iceland, who outperformed many people’s expectations (including my own) by qualifying to the final with ease. Væb finished with 97 points, receiving votes from sixteen out of a possible eighteen countries. Given that Iceland finished with nul points from the juries in the final, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Sammarinese jury gave them nothing on Tuesday, and “Róa” was also snubbed by Azerbaijan. However, it finished in the top three with four countries, including 12 points from Sweden and 8 points from the Rest of the World.

I really think this song was helped out quite a lot by the fans; a lot of the Eurovision community seemed to take to Iceland this year but, like me, feared for its chances. I believe this goes some way to explaining why it did so well with the Rest of the World televote. “Róa” was the first non-English song to be chosen as a semi-final opener since the producer-led running order was introduced in 2013, and with its qualification, the fact remains that Iceland have never failed to qualify singing in Icelandic, so maybe there will be more of this to come next year.

Just behind Iceland was Justyna Steczkowska from Poland, another entry performed very early on in the show. “Gaja” finished with 85 points, receiving votes from fifteen countries in the process. After last year’s non-qualification, Poland seem to be back on track, and have now qualified in three of their last five appearances, with an overall qualification rate of 44%. This was also the first Polish-language entry to reach the final since 2014; Poland have only sung in their native language twice since then, and Tulia very narrowly missed out in 2019.

Poland only received one set of maximum marks, and that came from the Netherlands, in an interesting case of what I think is likely to be diaspora voting. Interestingly, Poland received 12 points from the Icelandic televote in the final, but only 7 in the semi-final. Could this have been an effect of the running order? Poland, as usual, did well in countries with higher levels of diaspora such as Belgium and Spain, yet somewhat curiously failed to score at all from Estonia and Slovenia, both countries that I would have expected to rank Poland in the top ten at the very least.

Only three points behind Poland was Norway. “Lighter” scored 82 points overall, yet received points from seventeen countries – more than Poland – and in fact scored from every televoting country, with only the Sammarinese jury failing to award Kyle Alessandro any points. This reflects the poor jury score he received in the final, and is likely the result of a fairly weak vocal showing. Norway received 12 points from Ukraine, which seems a little bit random on the surface, but Kyle’s stepmother comes from the country, and he had spoken Ukrainian on social media in the run-up to the contest.

Norway only finished in the top three with three countries, but, as I said above, put in a strong showing with just about everyone in order to get comfortably over the line. The country has one of the longest qualification streaks out of all active participants at the moment, having qualified every year since 2017, and holds a qualification rate of 83%. Despite what was perceived to be a slightly weaker national selection this year, the country is clearly a powerhouse of modern Eurovision and shouldn’t be underestimated.

Next up we have the sleeper hit of 2025, in Portugal’s “Deslocado”. Napa were another surprising qualifier to many in the Eurovision community, including myself, but the song seems to have found a new lease of life on TikTok in recent weeks. Despite receiving points from fourteen out of eighteen countries, Portugal only scored a total of 56 points, and the only country to rank them in the top three was Switzerland, who gave them 8 points. Even reliable neighbours Spain only placed this fourth.

However, much like Norway, Portugal did very well to garner enough low-level support to get them through, scoring in the 1-4 points range with nine different countries. Playing to the masses is a risky strategy at Eurovision, but it seems to be paying off year on year for Portugal, who continue to see success by going their own way and refusing to jump on any trends. For the last two or three years, I have had varying levels of doubt about Portugal making it to the final, yet time and again they have proven me wrong, and must surely be in consideration as a powerhouse of the 2020s.

The last qualifier from this semi-final was San Marino, with Gabry Ponte’s “Tutta L’Italia” marking only the fourth appearance for the country in a Eurovision final. San Marino received points from fourteen countries, including douze points from Italy (with an astonishing 54.65% of the Italian televote). They were, however, the highest-ranked country overall to score nothing from the Rest of the World. This was San Marino’s first qualification with a song in Italian, and the country now has a qualification rate of 27%.

However, it’s not the votes received by San Marino that interest me so much as how San Marino voted themselves. As I mentioned earlier, San Marino were the only country in this semi-final to use a national jury, as the country is unable to organise an independent televote, therefore I believe there are interesting (if not necessarily valuable) insights to be gained from looking at this result a bit more closely.

As you can see in the above image, the Sammarinese jury vote in this semi-final was slightly peculiar: for one thing, it awarded points to all of the eventual non-qualifiers (the only country in this semi-final to do so) and gave nothing to fan favourites such as Sweden and Norway. One thing that stuck out to me like a sore thumb was the fact that three of the top four entries in the Sammarinese jury vote were ranked in the bottom three overall by the televote: Belgium, Slovenia and Azerbaijan. To me, this only serves to hammer home the message that we need juries in the semi-finals. We have seen countries in the past qualifying with little to no televote support (I’m looking at you, Nadir Rustamli), so it doesn’t seem too crazy to suggest that some of these entries, particularly Belgium, might have made it through had we had juries voting in every country.

We can also compare this vote to San Marino’s jury vote in the final to see how much things changed. Unfortunately, the EBU haven’t published individual juror breakdowns for the semi-final, so we can’t go into as much detail as I would have liked to, but there are still conclusions to be drawn. When comparing the ranking of the nine qualifiers from this semi-final (of course, this excludes San Marino themselves) as determined by the same jury four days apart, during dress rehearsals for the semi-final and then the final, we see, as we might expect, that there are no major changes. The most notable change in terms of positions is that of the Netherlands, which drops two places relative to its competitors in this field.

The fact that countries like the Netherlands and Sweden performed relatively poorly with this jury, particularly the fact that they are ranked lower than Iceland, does make me wonder how reliable this result can be considered to be as a barometer of jury tastes in 2025. Whilst I would love to continue looking at this result and extrapolate it to other countries, looking at the Sammarinese jury result from the final does suggest that this jury may in fact be an anomaly, and therefore shouldn’t be used as an example, tempting though it may be.

Just behind San Marino, very narrowly missing out on a place in the final, was Theo Evan from Cyprus. He scored 44 points, compared to 46 for Gabry Ponte, yet only received anything at all from five countries, a far cry from the fourteen that voted for “Tutta L’Italia”. In a result that doesn’t seem entirely above board, “Shh” received 12 points from Albania and Azerbaijan, 10 from Slovenia, 5 from Portugal as well as the Sammarinese jury… and nothing from every single other country voting in this semi-final. Strange, you might think. Well I do believe that there may be an explanation.

This next theory is entirely conjecture on my part, but I believe it may have something to do with one of the writers of “Shh”, a certain Dimitris Kontopoulos. “Shh” was his fifteenth Eurovision entry (including two from the cancelled 2020 contest), and his second in a row for Cyprus. It is my suspicion that this man knows how to manipulate a Eurovision televote; last year, “Liar” received a similarly sketchy-looking 12 points in its semi-final from both Moldova and Azerbaijan, and I think many Eurovision fans will remember the suspicious televote result of his previous entry, Natalia Gordienko’s “Sugar”, in its semi-final.

It seems to me that Kontopoulos, or someone he works with, knows how to game the system by accumulating lots of votes in countries that have low Eurovision viewership (that is to say, countries where fewer votes are required to earn more points). In my opinion, this is a more serious rule violation than any televote manipulation Israel may or may not have engaged in, and I’m not sure why the Eurovision community doesn’t seem to be speaking up about it. Whilst Cyprus came very close, I think it’s clear that their qualification wouldn’t have been deserved in these circumstances.

Last year’s runner-up Croatia limped to a twelfth-place finish with Marko Bošnjak’s “Poison Cake”. The song scored 28 points, including 12 from neighbouring Slovenia, 8 from Ukraine and 2 from the Rest of the World, being the lowest-ranked country to score anything from the latter vote. All in all, Croatia only scored points from seven countries out of a possible eighteen, despite a favourable running order position. After two consecutive final appearances, this result means that Croatia may continue their pattern of two years in the final followed by four years’ absence. This is one trend that I do hope gets broken, as Croatia really seemed to be building some momentum in Eurovision, so hopefully this year will end up being nothing more than a blip, a Trijntje Oosterhuis, if you will.

Thirteenth position went to Slovenia’s Klemen, with 23 points. Slovenia received points from eight countries, but only managed to reach the top three with the Sammarinese jury – even friendly neighbours Croatia only awarded “How Much Time Do We Have Left” 6 points. Like Croatia, Slovenia had two consecutive qualifications in 2023 and 2024, and the country has a pattern of its own in that since 2012, it has always qualified for two consecutive years before failing to qualify for the next two. If this were to continue, we would of course see Slovenia out of the final again next year. Following this year’s non-qualification, Slovenia now has a qualification rate of 38%.

Next, and tied with Slovenia on 23 points, was Belgium. Despite finishing with the same total score as Klemen, Red Sebastian is officially ranked fourteenth as he received points from only four countries, in comparison to Slovenia’s eight. The majority of Belgium’s points, as previously mentioned, came in the form of 12 points from the Sammarinese jury, with the only other countries to give “Strobe Lights” anything at all being Estonia, Iceland and the Netherlands. This marks a second consecutive non-qualification for Belgium, and, rather interestingly, the second consecutive year in which this has been considered a surprise by at least sections of the Eurovision community. Overall, Belgium now has a qualification rate of 40% (and both Belgian broadcasters, VRT and RTBF, each have an identical qualification rate as well).

Finally, we come to Azerbaijan, who finished with just 7 points, all of which came from the Sammarinese jury, meaning that Mamagama effectively received nul points from the televote in this semi-final. Having already cast doubt on the usefulness of the Sammarinese vote in estimating what a wider jury result may have looked like, I won’t speculate too much, but I do think Azerbaijan may have avoided the very worst had we had the experts present. In any event, the country is desperately struggling in Eurovision at the moment, having failed to qualify every year since 2022 (and even then making it through despite a televote zero). Nonetheless, Azerbaijan still has a qualification rate of 75%, reflecting strong results in years gone by, and I do believe they will make a resurgence sooner or later.

And I think that’s just about everything I wanted to cover! For your perusal, I have collated the current qualification streaks, and overall qualification rates, of every country in this semi-final to give an overall picture of the lay of the land. I will be publishing my analysis of the results of the second semi-final sooner rather than later, and intend on including a more detailed analysis of running order trends within that, which will include discussion of the running order from this semi-final as well. I’d also like to do more deep dives into specific voting patterns and trends at some point, but that wasn’t really the purpose of this article. Anyway, thank you for reading to the end, and I hope you will keep an eye out for my next articles coming soon.