To help with the familiarity issue could they not have the final-only nations perform at the semis whilst waiting for votes to come in as a bit of a preview to the big night?
Hopefully they will follow a similar route for an entrant this year. Last years contest overall was very strong one of the strongest for many a year imo. and our song was not the best however it was better than our recent entries.
The semis are only watched by a fraction of the audience of the final and a lot of countries only show the semi that they're in so I don't really buy the argument that the big 5 need to be represented in them, especially when Germany won it a few years ago.
RS
Rob_Schneider
The production has become significantly influenced by X Factor, especially so the Malmo and Copenhagen shows. The opening sequence of both of them in particular came straight out of the SyCo manual, infact watch the opening of this, and you can just imagine a big Peter Dickson V/O booming over it...
Agree with Gotago that the exposure in the semi-final is only a fraction of the audience for the final and isn't the reason the big 5 don't do well. That said I also think here people aren't tuning in to see the UK Eurovision entrant on the final night, so don't think ratings would be too affected if the UK had to compete at the semi-final stage and then got eliminated.
The production has become significantly influenced by X Factor, especially so the Malmo and Copenhagen shows. The opening sequence of both of them in particular came straight out of the SyCo manual, infact watch the opening of this, and you can just imagine a big Peter Dickson V/O booming over it...