"There has been some shuffling in the standings for YouTube views for this year's Eurovision Song Contest entries. Is it too early to declare a favorite?
Trends
The last couple weeks featured a few Eurovision pre-party events in London, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, and Riga, with Madrid hosting one this weekend. Despite these events, there wasn't a major spike in viewership on the Eurovision YouTube channel.
First Semi-Final
Top Spots
Sweden's Robin Bengtsson is starting to run away from the rest of the field, with "I Can't Go On" approaching 3 million views. If he hasn't crossed that mark by next week, he'll be very close. Belgium's Blanche is still on track to hit 3 million, but it will be a couple weeks before "City Lights" reaches that milestone. Australia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia round out the top five for this semi, both in total viewers and views for this week.
Big Moves
Georgia finally dropped its new video for "Keep the Faith" and managed to pull itself out of the bottom of the rankings this week. Slovenia, which dropped its video for "On My Way" last week, has almost matched the number of views its previous video achieved in half the time.
You in danger, girl
Although Czech Republic has held steady in views from week to week, Martina Bárta's "My Turn" had the fewest views at 30,600 and currently sits as the least-viewed video of the semi-final. Finland is also sitting behind Georgia, which was last week's low bar to clear.
Second Semi-Final
Top Spots
"Beautiful Mess" by Bulgaria's Kristian Kostov managed to move into first place, with 265,000 views pushing him beyond the 2 million mark. The new official video probably helped. Julia Samoylova also crossed the 2 million mark this week as Russia's status in this year's Contest is still up in the air.((Editor's Note: Until the EBU/Eurovision officially announces Russia withdrawing from or changing their entry for this year's Contest, we will be proceeding under the assumption that they will be competing with Julia Samoylova.))
Big Moves
Next week, the top position will probably be held by Valentina Monetta and Jimmie Wilson of San Marino, whose "Spirit of the Night" added another 536,000 views. At this pace, San Marino will probably hit 2 million by this weekend and could be giving Sweden a run for its money in two weeks. FYR Macedonia and Serbia rounded out the top five for the second semi in both weekly views and total viewers.
You in danger, girl
The "Rain of Revolution" doesn't seem to be catching on, as Lithuania's entry has a low water mark of 272,000 views and only 25,000 views this week. Malta is also on the rocks, as "Breathlessly" is sitting on 284,000 views and only 27,000 views this week.
The Auto-Qualifiers
France added another 200,000 views to its tally this week, keeping Alma's "Requiem" ahead of the pack with 1.5 million views total. Italy -- the favorite to win this year -- added 127,000 views to the abridged version of "Occidentali's Karma", which will likely cross the 1 million views mark in a couple weeks. Ukraine's entry "Time" had the fewest views of any entry this week, adding only 23,400 clicks to its tally.
YouTube viewership figures are based on surveying the official Eurovision channel videos between 8pm and 8:30pm Eastern on Wednesdays."