Malta scraped through to the Eurovision Grand Final having finished in 9^th place during Thursday’s Eurovision semi-final, the results published after Saturday’s main event show.

Miriana Conte’s ‘Serving’ – which generated plenty of headlines over its content – was tipped to make it to Saturday’s Grand Final by bookies with some degree of comfort, but the results show that her song was not as much of a hit as expected with audiences.

Conte placed in 9^th in her semi-final with 53 points. 

The top 10 songs out of the semi-final qualified for the Grand Final, and voting was based purely on televoting from the 16 countries taking part, from pre-qualified countries France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and online voting from the rest of the world.

Israel, which finished in the runner-up spot, won Thursday’s semi-final, while eventual winner Austria – which was only in Malta’s semi-final – placed just 5^th.

Malta’s 12 points during the semi-final went to Israel.

Regardless, Conte was the first Maltese act to make it into the Eurovision Grand Final since Destiny in 2021.

She eventually finished in 17^th place out of 26 countries with 91 points to her name. 

She was propped up by a solid performance with the juries, from whom she received 83 points – enough to put her 12^th.  She left less of an impact with audiences though: she only received 8 points from members of the public – 5 from Australia, and 1 each from Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Only Denmark (2 points), Switzerland and the United Kingdom (0 points) received fewer points from the audience.

Austria’s JJ was the eventual winner with his song ‘Wasted Love’, as he pipped Israel and Estonia to the title with 436 points.  Israel finished second on 357 points, followed by Estonia on 356 points, and pre-competition favourites Sweden in 4^th with 321 points.