A little bit of maths under pressure here. In the semi-final, 42 televotes will each distribute 58 points among 28 candidates. The mean average score will therefore be 87 points. It doesn’t follow that that will be the halfway mark on the scoreboard, but it’s reasonable to guess that 14th place will be somewhere around that level. I’m thinking that the qualifying target is hence going to be about three digits – round about 100 points.
It might be less than that if a lot more points go to the lower ranking countries than usually do (I can see that happening) – it might be more if there aren’t a few countries mopping up all the top scores like Ukraine/Serbia/Greece in 2004.
All the same, I’m going to hazard at 100 being the finishing line as far as the semifinal is concerned. On that basis, even though some countries have a diaspora advantage, no-one’s going to get into an envelope without some serious quality points coming their way to augment the total.
The direct finalists are definitely going to be given something to think about come Friday morning.