[Brekkie]

If anything they should have gone the other way and cut it into quarters or fifths (groups of 5 would work, with the host as the 26th drawn completely at random).

Ultimately whether they draw first or second half now or "producers choice" it's effectively all producers choice. The EBU though probably mess up by being too honest in labelling it "producers choice" and perhaps should have gone with something like "wildcard" with the outcome being the same but it just doesn't sound so blatantly fixed. I think having 7-8 automatically allocate to each half rather than just 6 so fewer are allocated by producers would have made it a bit easier to sell too.

Alternatively the same thing could have been achieved by replacing the halves with odds and evens. That still gives some sense of randomisation but gives the producers what they want with them able to allocate a song from position 1 to 25 or 2 to 26.