Eurovision Song Contest

Television broadcast
Original title	Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson
Country of production	various
original language	English , marginal French
Year (s)	since 1956
Production company	various
length	120 and 240 minutes
Broadcasting cycle	yearly
genre	music
idea	Marcel Bezençon
Moderation	various
First broadcast	May 24, 1956

The Eurovision Song Contest ( ESC; German "Eurovision Song Contest"; until 2001 in Germany under the French name Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson , in Austria called "Song Contest") is a music competition for composers , lyricists and songwriters . The contributions are presented by vocal interpreters and dancers. Since 1956 this has been organized annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) as part of the Eurovision . The inspiration for this was influenced by the Sanremo Festival , which was launched in 1951. At the ESCthe broadcasters of all states of the EBU are entitled to participate. This broadcasting union consists mainly of European and some radio and television stations from neighboring West Asian and North African countries. The ESC reaches over 180 million viewers worldwide every year.

Event mode

Since the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson in 1957, the broadcasters in each participating country have been sending a song to the Eurovision Song Contest .

The competition has been held regularly since 1958 in the country of the previous year's winner; There were only a few deviations from this, most recently in 1980.

Especially given the increasing number of participants due to the accession of many Eastern European countries to the EBU, a preliminary round took place from 2004 to 2007. Since 2008 , two preliminary rounds known as semi-finals have been held.

The semifinals and finals consist of two parts: in the first part, which lasts around two hours, the participants present their song, in the second part the participating countries award their points. In the semifinals, this part only lasts about 15 minutes, as the finalists are announced there in random order and without reading out all the individual points awarded. In the finale, this second part lasts a good hour. The transition from part one to part two, i.e. the time in which the audience can cast their votes at home - is around 15 minutes and is bridged on stage by a show program, the so-called interval act .

Overview of the events

Lys Assia at the 1958 event in the Netherlands

The Eurovision Song Contest has taken place a total of 65 times since 1956. The first edition took place in 1956 in Lugano , Switzerland ; the next edition is planned for May 2022 in Italy.

Only once since the first event in 1956 has no competition been held. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the organizers to cancel the ESC 2020 , which was scheduled to take place in the Netherlands.

A detailed overview of all events since 1956 can be found in the list of winners and events of the Eurovision Song Contest .

Events of the Eurovision Song Contest

year	place	winner
		country	Interpreter	title
1956	Lugano	Switzerland	Lys Assia	refrain
1957	Frankfurt am Main	Netherlands	Corry Brokken	Net than toen
1958	Hilversum	France	André Claveau	Dors mon amour
1959	Cannes	Netherlands	Teddy Scholten	Een beetje
1960	London	France	Jacqueline Boyer	Tom Pillibi
1961	Cannes	Luxembourg	Jean-Claude Pascal	Nous les amoureux
1962	Luxembourg	France	Isabelle Aubret	Un premier amour
1963	London	Denmark	Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann	Dansevise
1964	Copenhagen	Italy	Gigliola Cinquetti	Non ho l'età
1965	Naples	Luxembourg	France Gall	Poupée de cire, poupée de son
1966	Luxembourg	Austria	Udo Juergens	Merci, Chérie
1967	Vienna	United Kingdom	Sandie Shaw	Puppet on a String
1968	London	Spain	Massiel	La, la, la
1969 1	Madrid	Spain	Salomé	Vivo cantando
		France	Frida Boccara	Un jour, un enfant
		Netherlands	Lenny Kuhr	De troubadour
		United Kingdom	Lulu	Boom bang-a-bang
1970	Amsterdam	Ireland	Dana	All Kinds of Everything
1971	Dublin	Monaco	Severine	Un banc, un arbre, une rue
1972	Edinburgh	Luxembourg	Vicky Leandros	Après toi
1973	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Anne-Marie David	Tu te reconnaîtras
1974	Brighton	Sweden	ABBA	Waterloo
1975	Stockholm	Netherlands	Teach-in	Ding-a-dong
1976	The hague	United Kingdom	Brotherhood of Man	Save your kisses for me
1977	London	France	Marie Myriam	L'oiseau et l'enfant
1978	Paris	Israel	Yizhar Cohen & The Alpha Beta	A-ba-ni-bi
1979	Jerusalem	Israel	Gali Atari & Milk and Honey	Hallelujah (הללויה)
1980	The hague	Ireland	Johnny Logan	What's Another Year
1981	Dublin	United Kingdom	Bucks Fizz	Making Your Mind Up
1982	Harrogate	Germany	Nicole	A bit of peace
1983	Munich	Luxembourg	Corinne Hermès	Si la vie est cadeau
1984	Luxembourg	Sweden	Herreys	Diggi-loo, diggi-ley
1985	Gothenburg	Norway	Bobbysocks	La det swing
1986	Mountains	Belgium	Sandra Kim	J'aime la vie
1987	Brussels	Ireland	Johnny Logan	Hold me now
1988	Dublin	Switzerland	Celine Dion	Ne partez pas sans moi
1989	Lausanne	Yugoslavia	Riva	rock Me
1990	Zagreb	Italy	Toto Cutugno	Insieme: 1992
1991	Rome	Sweden	Carola	Fångad av en stormvind
1992	Malmo	Ireland	Linda Martin	Why Me
1993	Millstreet	Ireland	Niamh Kavanagh	In your eyes
1994	Dublin	Ireland	Paul Harrington & Charlie McGettigan	Rock 'n' Roll kids
1995	Dublin	Norway	Secret Garden	nocturne
1996	Oslo	Ireland	Eimear Quinn	The Voice
1997	Dublin	United Kingdom	Katrina and the Waves	Love shine a light
1998	Birmingham	Israel	Dana International	diva
1999	Jerusalem	Sweden	Charlotte Nilsson	Take Me to Your Heaven
2000	Stockholm	Denmark	Olsen Brothers	Fly on the wings of love
2001	Copenhagen	Estonia	Tanel Padar , Dave Benton & 2XL	Everybody
2002	Tallinn	Latvia	Marie N	I wanna
2003	Riga	Turkey	Sertab Erener	Everyway that I can
2004	Istanbul	Ukraine	Ruslana	Wild Dances
2005	Kiev	Greece	Elena Paparizou	My Number One
2006	Athens	Finland	Lordi	Hard rock hallelujah
2007	Helsinki	Serbia	Marija Serifović	Molitva
2008	Belgrade	Russia	Dima Bilan	Believe
2009	Moscow	Norway	Alexander Rybak	Fairytale
2010	Oslo	Germany	Lena	Satellite
2011	Dusseldorf	Azerbaijan	Ell & Nikki	Running scared
2012	Baku	Sweden	Loreen	Euphoria
2013	Malmo	Denmark	Emmelie de Forest	Only teardrops
2014	Copenhagen	Austria	Conchita Wurst	Rise Like a Phoenix
2015	Vienna	Sweden	Måns Zelmerlöw	Heroes
2016	Stockholm	Ukraine	Jamala	1944
2017	Kiev	Portugal	Salvador Sobral	Amar pelos dois
2018	Lisbon	Israel	Nice	Toy
2019	Tel Aviv	Netherlands	Duncan Laurence	Arcade
2020	Rotterdam	The competition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic .
2021	Rotterdam	Italy	Måneskin	Zitti e buoni

¹ In 1969 there were four winners in the event of a tie due to lack of regulation

history

idea

The idea for the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne came from the Swiss Marcel Bezençon in 1955 . At that time he was Director General of the Swiss Broadcasting Company SRG and Chairman of the Program Commission of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). During a conference of the program committee at the end of January 1955 in Monaco , he presented the idea for a European hit competition based on the example of the Sanremo Festival . On October 19, 1955, the general assembly of the EBU then decided to hold a Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne , the later Eurovision Song Contest . The first edition took place in 1956 in Lugano . In honor of the inventor, the Marcel Bezençon Prize for the best song, the best artistic representation and the best composition (selected by accredited journalists, the commentators and the participating composers) has been awarded annually since 2002 during the Eurovision Song Contest .

participating countries

Countries that have participated at least once

Countries that have previously participated as part of another country, but never as a sovereign state

Countries that are EBU members but have not yet participated

Countries that were supposed to participate but withdrew shortly before

All countries that are members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest . In addition to most European (since 1990 also the Eastern European) countries, members of the EBU are also some non-European countries in the Mediterranean region. Of the EBU members located exclusively outside of Europe, only Israel and Cyprus have regularly participated in the ESC for a long time, and since the 2000s the South Caucasus republics of Georgia , Armenia and Azerbaijan . Because of the popularity of the show in Australia , the country has been allowed to participate in the ESC since 2015 , as an associate EBU member.

Every EBU member has the right to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, but there is no obligation. This can change the number of actual participants. On the first competition in 1956 in the Swiss Lugano seven countries participated with two contributions, the host Switzerland and the Netherlands , Belgium , the Federal Republic of Germany , France , Luxembourg and Italy . In the following years, more and more countries showed interest in the competition. Yugoslavia was a member of the EBU and was the only socialist country to take part regularly in the Eurovision Song Contest from 1961 to 1991 .

Since the EBU was expanded in 1990, Central and Eastern European countries have also been able to participate, and more and more of them have decided to participate. In order not to let the duration of the event get out of hand, the EBU had to limit the number of participants, so not all countries could take part every year. In 1993 there was a separate Eastern European preliminary round in which seven Eastern European countries competed for three starting places. From 1994 the number of participants was limited to 25 (in 1995 only 23). The best 19 countries qualified for the coming year, the others had to take a year out.

In 1996 , a new procedure was finally introduced due to a further increase in the number of registrations. All registered participants, with the exception of the Norwegian home contribution, had to submit to an internal audio pre-selection by a jury. Since the German contribution was eliminated in this preselection and Germany then threatened to refuse to co-finance further events if it was not allowed to participate as the largest contributor, it was decided that the four (since 2011 the five) members with the largest share of the EBU budget from 1999 are set for participation in the event. This meant that Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain as well as - since returning to the 2011 Song Contest - also Italy were automatically eligible to participate regardless of their placement in the previous year. These countries are known as the Big Five ( English The Big Five ; before 2011 The Big Four ). Since the introduction of qualifications in 2004, this regulation means that these countries do not have to face a qualification and are directly qualified for the finals. This special right is criticized by some countries as “buying the finals”. Since 2013, this regulation has been a reason for Turkey's non-participation .

In order to give every country a chance to participate every year, preliminary rounds have been held since 2004, in which all active members of the EBU (except for the Big Five) can take part. From 2004 to 2007 a preliminary round was held, from which the ten best placed came into the final, together with the four seeded, the organizer and places two to ten of the previous year. Since 2008 there have been two preliminary rounds ("semifinals"), from which the ten best placed next to the four (since 2011 five) seeded and the host qualify for the final. By dividing culturally, geographically and linguistically related countries into different semifinals, advantages within the point allocation due to proximity are to be reduced.

Almost all European countries have now participated. Liechtenstein and the Vatican are the only indisputably independent states in Europe that have never participated in the ESC. While Liechtenstein has not yet had a broadcaster that is also an EBU member, Vatican Radio is represented in this association. In Liechtenstein, there has been a television broadcaster with 1 FL TV since 2008 , which aims to become a member of the EBU and participation in the ESC.

With its participation in the 1980 competition, Morocco is the only Arab country that has participated so far. With Algeria , Tunisia , Libya , Egypt , Jordan and Lebanon , there are other countries in the Arab culture that are members of the European Broadcasting Union, but because of Israel's participation in the ESC, they have so far refused to participate in solidarity with the Palestinians.

According to the EBU, Australia competed as a one-time anniversary guest in 2015 and was directly qualified for the final. Since 2016, Australia has been participating in the competition as an associate member of the EBU - contrary to previous statements. However, the Australian contribution has since then had to qualify in the semifinals for the final show. Should Australia win, the ESC will not be held there, but in a European partner country that the responsible broadcaster SBS can freely choose.

Timeline of the participating countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

Attendees	to hum						50s				60s										70s										80s										90s										00s										10s										20s
							6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1
Switzerland	00	47	02	11	04th
Netherlands	02	46	05	09	02
France	02	57	05	00	00
Luxembourg	27	32	05	00	00
Denmark	12th	41	03	05	03
Italy	19th	43	02	00	00
Austria	10	45	02	05	02
United Kingdom	02	57	05	00	00
Spain	05	57	02	00	00
Ireland	10	38	07th	08th	01
Monaco	40	20th	01	03	00
Sweden	05	52	06th	01	00
Israel	20th	32	04th	07th	01
Germany	00	61	02	01	00
Norway	05	52	03	03	01
Belgium	00	50	01	10	03
Yugoslavia	26th	26th	01	00	11
Estonia	37	15th	01	10	01
Latvia	44	09	01	10	00
Turkey	29	32	01	01	01
Ukraine	49	13th	02	00	00
Greece	23	37	01	02	01
Finland	06th	43	01	08th	06th
Serbia	52	08th	01	03	00
Russia	40	20th	01	02	01
Azerbaijan	52	10	01	01	00
Portugal	12th	41	01	09	01
Malta	34	25th	00	04th	00
Morocco	63	01	00	00	00
Cyprus	27	30th	00	06th	01
Iceland	30th	25th	00	07th	02
Slovenia	37	15th	00	10	02
Bosnia and Herzegovina	43	18th	00	01	02
Croatia	39	18th	00	07th	00
Slovakia	53	03	00	05	03
Hungary	44	14th	00	05	01
Romania	38	19th	00	04th	03
Lithuania	41	13th	00	07th	03
Poland	40	14th	00	08th	02
North Macedonia	41	09	00	11	03
Albania	48	09	00	07th	00
Serbia and Montenegro	62	02	00	00	00
Andorra	58	00	00	06th	00
Belarus	48	06th	00	10	00
Moldova	49	10	00	05	00
Bulgaria	52	04th	00	08th	00
Armenia	51	10	00	03	00
Georgia	52	07th	00	05	00
Montenegro	53	02	00	09	00
Czech Republic	56	03	00	05	00
San Marino	54	02	00	08th	00
Australia	59	05	00	00	00
Attendees	to hum						6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	0	1
							50s				60s										70s										80s										90s										00s										10s										20s
 participated in the final but not won  participated and won  participated but not in the final because: eliminated in the Eastern European preliminary decision (1993), eliminated in the qualifying round (1996), eliminated in the semifinals (from 2004)  did not take part because: blocked by the EBU (1993–2003), not qualified because of previous year's placement (1994 and 1995), not qualified because of average placements in the last four or five years (1997–2003) Participation was planned, but the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 had to be canceled  not participated Sorting order: first victory at ESC, first participation, placement in qualification, alphabetically.

Withdrawals from the ESC

In the course of time, individual countries have repeatedly decided against participating in the Eurovision Song Contest, partly out of protest, partly out of disinterest or because of short-term problems. Individual EBU members have already tried to participate, but have never taken part in the competition. Other countries no longer exist, which is why they are no longer members of the EBU.

In 1969 Austria stayed away from the competition in Madrid in protest against the Franco dictatorship in Spain . A year later Finland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Austria did not take part because they were dissatisfied with the circumstances and voting mechanisms, which had led to four winners with equal points in the previous year. For the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 , Serbia and Montenegro withdrew their contribution at short notice, as there were indications of voting irregularities in the national preliminary decision. At the ESC 2009 in Moscow, Georgia withdrew its participation at short notice after the participant title We Don't Wanna Put In was criticized as a criticism of Russia's Prime Minister Putin . Armenia registered for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in the hostile neighboring country Azerbaijan, but withdrew after the registration period due to a lack of security for any participants. Romania was originally supposed to participate in 2016 and has already selected an artist and a song via a national preliminary decision. Due to open debts with the EBU, it announced only a few days before the competition in Stockholm that Romania would be disqualified from the Song Contest in 2016. Thus, the country did not participate in 2016. For the ESC 2017 in Kiev, Russia had already determined the participant and contribution, but ultimately did not take part because, from the perspective of Ukraine, the participant had previously entered the Crimea peninsula illegally and was therefore not allowed to enter the host country. Another performer was not selected and Russia withdrew.

With Tunisia ( 1977 ) and Lebanon ( 2005 ), two other Arab countries were each about to take part, but withdrew. In both cases, the simultaneous participation of Israel was a reason for the cancellation.

Other former participating countries such as Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro no longer exist and can therefore no longer take part in the competition.

These ten countries have waived further participation (as of December 2019):

country	previous participations	Reason and note	last participation
Andorra	06th	Andorra participated from 2004 to 2009 and has stayed away for financial reasons ever since.	2009
Armenia	14 *	Armenia participated in the competition from 2006 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2020. The country withdrew for undisclosed reasons.	2020 *
Bosnia and Herzegovina	19th	Bosnia and Herzegovina participated regularly from 1993 to 2012. In 2016 they returned to the ESC thanks to sponsorship , but had to cancel again the following year. Because of the dire financial situation of the broadcaster BHRT, the EBU has imposed sanctions so that you are currently not allowed to participate.	2016
Luxembourg	37	Luxembourg was a regular participant from 1956 and won a total of five times, most recently in 1983. Due to a new regulation by the EBU regarding the participants, 1994 was suspended. In 1995 one could have taken part again, but has since waived due to lack of interest.	1993
Morocco	01	Morocco took part once in 1980 and is no longer aiming to participate.	1980
Monaco	24	Monaco was regularly represented from 1959, won in 1971 and refrained from participating in 1980. In 2004 the country came back for three years. Since 2007, deficiencies in the rating system and a lack of chances of winning speak against participation.	2006
Montenegro	11	Montenegro participated from 2007 to 2009 before giving up for two years for financial reasons. The country was represented again from 2012 to 2019. For 2020 the broadcaster RTCG canceled ; due to financial difficulties and unsuccessfulness: Montenegro have only made it into the final twice (2014 and 2015).	2019
Slovakia	08th	Slovakia first took part in 1993, but withdrew from the competition in 2000. From 2009 to 2012 they took part again, since then Slovakia has stayed away for financial reasons.	2012
Turkey	34	Turkey first took part in 1975 and has been represented regularly since 1980. She has not been there since 2013, as the country no longer agrees with the status of the "Big Five" and the equal weighting of jury and televoting in the point evaluation. The show has not been broadcast on television since then. After Conchita Wurst's victory in 2014 , Turkey's negative attitude increased: the audience could not be expected to appear with sexual innuendos and in light clothing, as well as the triumphs of homosexual artists.	2012
Hungary	19th	Since its debut in 1993, Hungary has refrained from participating several times: 2000 to 2004, 2006 and 2010. Each time, financial difficulties were cited. In 2020, the MTVA broadcaster stayed away for reasons unknown.	2019

Venue

Map with all previous venues

The Eurovision Song Contest has been held in the country of the previous year's winner since 1958. Since the regulation of the award to the winning country in 1956 did not yet exist, the Federal Republic of Germany hosted the Eurovision Grand Prix in Frankfurt am Main in 1957.

Five times it has happened so far that the winning country of last year's competition did not host the event as originally planned, but instead another country stepped in as the organizer. Four times this was Great Britain (1960 for the Netherlands, 1963 for France, 1972 for Monaco and 1974 for Luxembourg) and once the Netherlands (1980 for Israel).

The Eurovision Song Contest has been held eight times in Great Britain and seven times in Ireland. The most frequent venue is the Irish capital Dublin with six events , followed by London and Luxembourg with four events each.

Since the 2000s, the competition has often been held in large arenas. So taught Denmark , for example, the Euro Vision Song Contest 2001 in Parking and Germany the Euro Vision Song Contest 2011 in Dusseldorf Arena from. Before the turn of the millennium, the Eurovision Song Contest often took place in theaters or television studios. For example, the Point Theater in Dublin hosted the competition three times. On the other hand, in recent years there have often been venues in which seats were not installed beforehand. For example, Ukraine hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in an event center, the International Exhibition Center . Israel also hosted the 2019 competition in an event center, the Tel Aviv Convention Center . Denmark even hosted the competition in 2014 in an old shipyard, the B&W Hallerne .

The following table shows the most common venues for the Eurovision Song Contest:

Hosted competitions	country	city	building	Year (s)
8th	United Kingdom	London	Royal Festival Hall	1960
			BBC Television Center	1963
			Royal Albert Hall	1968
			Wembley Conference Center	1977
		Edinburgh	Usher Hall	1972
		Brighton	Brighton Dome	1974
		Harrogate	Harrogate International Center	1982
		Birmingham	National Indoor Arena	1998
7th	Ireland	Dublin	Gaiety Theater	1971
			Simmonscourt Pavilion at the Royal Dublin Society	1981 , 1988
			Point Theater	1994 , 1995 , 1997
		Millstreet	Green Glens Arena	1993
6th	Sweden	Stockholm	St. Eriks Mässan Älvsjö	1975
			Ericsson Globe	2000 , 2016
		Malmo	Malmo Isstadion	1992
			Malmo Arena	2013
		Gothenburg	Scandinavium	1985
5	Netherlands	The hague	World Forum	1976 , 1980
		Hilversum	AVRO Studios Hilversum	1958
		Amsterdam	Amsterdam RAI	1970
		Rotterdam	Ahoy Rotterdam	2020 , 2021
4th	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	Villa Louvigny	1962 , 1966
			Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg	1973 , 1984
3	Denmark	Copenhagen	Tivoli Concert Hall	1964
			Park	2000
			B&W Hallerne	2014
	Germany	Frankfurt am Main	Large broadcasting hall of the Hessian Broadcasting Corporation	1957
		Munich	Rudi Sedlmayer Hall	1983
		Dusseldorf	Düsseldorf Arena	2011
	France	Cannes	Palais des Festivals et des Congrès	1959 , 1961
		Paris	Palais des congrès de Paris	1978
	Israel	Jerusalem	International Convention Center Jerusalem	1979 , 1999
		Tel Aviv	Tel Aviv Convention Center	2019
	Norway	Mountains	Grieg Hall	1986
		Oslo	Oslo spectrum	1996
			Telenor Arena	2010
2	Italy	Naples	Rai di Napoli auditorium	1965
		Rome	Studio 15 de Cinecittà	1991
	Austria	Vienna	Great ballroom of the Hofburg	1967
			Wiener Stadthalle	2015
	Switzerland	Lugano	Kursaal Theater	1956
		Lausanne	Palais de Beaulieu	1989
	Ukraine	Kiev	Kiev Sports Palace	2005
			International Exhibition Center	2017
1	Azerbaijan	Baku	Baku Crystal Hall	2012
	Belgium	Brussels	Palais du Centenaire	1987
	Estonia	Tallinn	Saku Suurhall	2002
	Finland	Helsinki	Hartwall Arena	2007
	Greece	Athens	OAKA Olympic Indoor Hall	2006
	Yugoslavia	Zagreb	Koncertna dvorana Vatroslava Lisinskog	1990
	Latvia	Riga	Discount hall	2003
	Portugal	Lisbon	Altice Arena	2018
	Russia	Moscow	Olimpijski	2009
	Serbia	Belgrade	Belgrade Arena	2008
	Spain	Madrid	Teatro Real	1969
	Turkey	Istanbul	Abdi İpekçi Arena	2004

description

The official name of the event has been the Eurovision Song Contest since 1992 . The name was first used in 1960 for the fifth competition in the United Kingdom . A total of 41 of the 61 events to date have had this name. Since 1970, this term has also been used in non-English- speaking countries, first in a figurative form such as Eurovisie Songfestival ( nl. ), Concours Eurovision de la Chanson ( French ) or most recently in 1991 Concorso Eurovisione della Canzone ( Italian ).

In the German public, the term Grand Prix is ​​also used for the song competition , as this is, on the one hand, the short form of the designation of earlier events, with titles such as Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson or their translations into Italian - Spanish ( Gran Premio [...] ) and Germans ( Eurovision Grand Prix ). On the other hand, the award that the winner of the competition received was called the Grand Prix until 2003 (most recently: Grand Prix of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest ). Since 2004, the term Grand Prix has completely disappeared from the rules.

motto

The Song Contest has only been supported by a motto every year since 2002. Since then, there has been a short logo every year that consists of a few and concise words in English and some also contains characters, such as the hashtag 2014. Only in 2009 did Russia dispense with a motto, but since 2010 a motto has been used every year. The following mottos have been used since 2002:

Mottos since 2002

year	host	motto	Translation (unofficial)
2002	Estonia	A Modern Fairytale	A modern fairy tale
2003	Latvia	Magical rendezvous	Magical rendezvous
2004	Turkey	Under the same sky	Under the same sky
2005	Ukraine	Awakening	awakening
2006	Greece	Feel the rhythm!	Feel the rhythm
2007	Finland	True fantasy	Real fantasy
2008	Serbia	Confluence of Sound	Confluence of music
2010	Norway	Share the moment	Share the moment
2011	Germany	Feel your heart beat!	Feel your heart beating
2012	Azerbaijan	Light your fire!	Light your fire
2013	Sweden	We are one	We are one
2014	Denmark	#JoinUs	Join us
2015	Austria	Building bridges	to build bridges
2016	Sweden	Come together	Come together
2017	Ukraine	Celebrate diversity	Celebrate diversity
2018	Portugal	All Aboard!	Everyone on board!
2019	Israel	Dare To Dream!	Dare to dream!
2020	Netherlands	Open Up	Open yourself
2021	Netherlands	Open Up	Open yourself

logo

The old logo - here in 2014 - which was used from 2004 to 2014

The new logo - here in 2021

The typical Eurovision Song Contest logo with the heart in the middle has only existed in its form since 2004. Before that, each host country had created its own logo for the event. From 2004 to 2014 the logo was similar to a brushed logo. In 2015 the EBU decided to slightly change the logo for the 60th anniversary. From now on, the logo is made clearer and the brushed strokes have been converted into smooth lines.

Moderators

→ Main article : List of moderators at the Eurovision Song Contest

The 1956 competition was the only one so far in which a single man led the evening. In the following years it was always moderators until 1978 in Paris for the first time a man and a woman hosted together. Israel followed this example in 1979. From 1980 to 1987, 1993 and 1995 it was again individual women; from 1988 to 1992, 1994 and from 1996 to 2009, with the exception of 1999, a two-man team consisting of a man and a woman was used again. In 2009, however, there was the special feature that there was a different team of moderators for the two semi-finals and for the final. In 1999, 2010, 2011 and 2012 two moderators led through the event. In 2013 the event was presented again by a single moderator. In 2014, the competition was presented jointly for the first time and for the only time by a moderator and two moderators. In 2015, three moderators led through the event for the first time, while in 2016 a pair of men and women was used again. In 2017, three moderators presented the competition for the first and so far only time. In 2018, on the other hand, four moderators moderated the competition for the first time. In 2019, it was decided to have two moderators.

Occasionally, former competition participants also guided through the evening: 1976 Corry Brokken , 1979 Jardena Arasi , 1985 Lill Lindfors , 1986 Åse Kleveland , 1991 Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno , 1999 Dafna Dekel , 2003 Marie N and Renārs Kaupers , 2006 Sakis Rouvas , 2008 Željko Joksimović , 2009 Alsou , 2011 Stefan Raab , 2012 Eldar Qasımov , 2013 Eric Saade ( Green Room ), 2015 Conchita Wurst (Green Room), 2016 Måns Zelmerlöw .

Conditions of participation for artist and song

From 1966 to 1972 and from 1977 to 1998 the rule was that every interpreter had to sing in the respective national language. Since 1999, the interpreters have again been free to choose the language in which their contribution is sung.

New regulation from 2011

At the end of August 2010, the Reference Group of the European Broadcasting Union met in Belgrade . The committee preferred the date of publication of the songs of a year from October 1st to September 1st of the previous year.

Current rules since 2012

According to the current version of the rules:

• The performers must be at least 16 years old.
• Each performer is only allowed to compete for one country in a year.
• A maximum of six people may take part on the stage.
• The song must be sung live, with the exception of the backing vocals.
• The song or performance must not contain a political message or damage the image of the song competition.
• No animals are allowed to participate in the performance.
• The songs may be published on September 1st of the previous year at the earliest (this rule has been in effect since September 1st, 2010).
• It has to be an original song , so it cannot be a cover version of an older song.
• The length of the contribution can be a maximum of three minutes
• The instrumental music is played as a playback . For the last time, in 1998, the performers were given the opportunity to be accompanied live by an orchestra.
• The number of participating countries is limited to 44, in the final to 26 (exception at the ESC 2015 , where 27 countries competed, including the anniversary guest of honor Australia .)

National preliminary decisions

Each country is free as to how it chooses its representative for the Eurovision Song Contest. Usually this takes place in the form of national preliminary decisions in which several singers compete against each other. While in previous years a jury usually chose the participant, this is increasingly done via a telephone vote (English: televoting ). Many countries also use the voting system that is used in the contest itself: 50% of the votes are made by the jury and 50% of the votes are selected by televoting. Other countries do not make a preliminary decision and choose their contribution internally.

So far, almost every country that has ever taken part in the Song Contest has held a national preliminary decision. Only Morocco and Monaco never held a preliminary decision.

Belgium

The majority of the Belgian contributions were selected via the Eurosong preliminary decision . It should be noted that RTBF last held a preliminary decision in 2013, while VRT last held a preliminary decision in 2016. In 1956, 1964, 1985, 1990, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2015 and since 2017, the country selects its contributions internally.

Germany

Germany selected the majority of its contributions via a national preliminary decision. The German preliminary decision in the years 2010-2019 was "Our song / Star / Song for ..." (supplemented by the respective city in which the song contest took place in the year in question). In 2004 and 2005 he was entitled "Germany 12 Points!"; in 2006 the title " German preliminary decision for the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 ". There was also a club concert in 2014 and 2015, at which the winner received a wildcard for the preliminary round. In the years 1959, from 1966 to 1968, 1974, 1977, 1993 to 1995, 2009 and since 2020 the contribution is selected internally.

Austria

Austria selected the majority of its contributions internally. In the years from 1981 to 1984, 1990 to 1991, 1993 to 1994, 2002 to 2005, 2011 to 2013 as well as 2015 and 2016 a national preliminary decision took place.

Switzerland

The majority of the Swiss entries were determined via the preliminary decision of the Eurovision Concours . However, this last took place in 2004 and was replaced in 2011 by the program The Great Decision Show . This preliminary decision took place until 2018; in the years 1969 to 1971, 1980, 1994 to 1997 and from 2005 to 2010 no preliminary decision was made. Since 2019, the country has been selecting its contribution internally.

Other countries

The other participating countries use the following forms of selection (as of March 5, 2021):

country	National preliminary decision
Albania	Festivali i Këngës
Azerbaijan	internal selection
Australia	internal selection
Bulgaria	internal selection
Denmark	Dansk Melodi Grand Prix
Estonia	Eesti Laul
Finland	Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu
France	Eurovision France, c'est vous qui décidez
Georgia	internal selection
Greece	internal selection
Ireland	internal selection
Israel	internal selection (artist)
	HaShir Shelanu L'Eurovizion (song)
Iceland	Söngvakeppnin
Italy	Sanremo Festival
Latvia	internal selection
Lithuania	Pabandom iš naujo!
Croatia	Dora
Malta	internal selection
Moldova	internal selection
Netherlands	internal selection
North Macedonia	internal selection
Norway	Melodi Grand Prix
Poland	internal selection
Portugal	Festival da Canção
Romania	internal selection
Russia	National preliminary decision
San Marino	internal selection
Sweden	Melodifestivalen
Serbia	internal selection
Slovenia	internal selection
Spain	internal selection (artist)
	Destino Eurovision (song)
Czech Republic	internal selection
Ukraine	internal selection
United Kingdom	internal selection
Cyprus	internal selection

With one or more preliminary rounds and a final, the shows run in Albania, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal and Sweden. The Festivali i Këngës in Albania and the Sanremo Festival in Italy were not specially designed for the ESC, in these two formats the winner is offered the ESC participation, only in Italy the Sanremo winner has the opportunity, in the event of a victory not wanting to participate. In the past, the Netherlands had always used a preliminary decision to determine the contribution. Up until then, the contribution was determined internally only in 1961, 1980 and 2008. However, since 2013 the Netherlands has been selecting all contributions internally. In Russia, the representative of the broadcasters CR1 and RTR is alternately selected annually , which decides how the representative is selected.

Scoring and voting procedures

In 1975 the current and now cult, commonly known as "douze points" system, was introduced. In order to increase the tension curve, the points have been awarded in ascending order since 1980. In 2016, the procedure was expanded so that each country awards up to twelve points twice, with separate results from televoting and jury evaluations.

Previous scoring modes

Until 1997, the award of points was determined exclusively by a jury. The following mode was used for the first ESC with published voting results (1957): There were ten members in each state jury, and each member could give one point for their favorite. This mode was used from 1957 to 1961, 1967 to 1970 and 1974.

In 1962 the regional juries awarded three points to the best title, two points to the second best and one point to the third best title. This mode was expanded to five points for first place and following in 1963. In 1964, a new mode was introduced: each juror evaluates each country and a list is created from this. The best title was given five points, the second placed three and the third placed one point. If only one title is nominated, it receives all nine points, if there are two, the first six and the second-placed title receives three points.

Since there have been zero points regularly since 1962, and even four per year from 1962 to 1965, and because of the dissatisfaction with the rating system from 1957, which had four winners in 1969, a new mode was introduced in 1971: each country sends two jurors to judge each song could give between one and five points, so that the number of points achieved could rise to over 100 points for the first time.

In 1975, the bis points scheme was introduced, which is still used today: each country entitled to vote awards 12 for the best title, 10 for the second best and then 8 to 1 for the next eight best titles, in descending order. From 1975 to 1979 the points were read out according to the starting order.

Until 1996 the jury consisted of 16 people per country - eight experts and eight music-interested laypeople , who also had to come from different generations and genders in order to guarantee an objective result.

In 1997, televoting was tried out for the first time in Germany, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and the United Kingdom , and the audience was very enthusiastic. The jury was replaced by the new rating system as early as 1998. Only a few countries, such as Russia and Hungary, where it was not possible for technical reasons, only introduced televoting a little later. The audience votes were transferred to the “douze points” system and thus awarded.

In 2006 the announcement of the points was changed. Since then, not all points have been read out, but only partially displayed. Until 2013, the points from one to seven were displayed on announcement and only the titles with 8, 10 and 12 points were passed on by the national television broadcasters. The award procedure could thus be accelerated. In 2014 it was accelerated again by not being able to announce points one to seven, but instead appearing immediately when greeting the connected country.

Between 2009 and 2015, 50% of the points awarded by each country were determined by telephone voting and 50% by a five-person jury.

Current voting procedure

In the final, all countries that entered the semi-finals are allowed to vote. Thus, the countries eliminated in the semi-finals are also entitled to vote.

No points may be awarded for the contribution made by one's own country. The entry with the most points overall won.

Since 2016, each country has been awarding two separate sets of points, one from the results of the jury and the other from the results of the telephone vote. Each point set consists of points 1 to 8, 10 and 12, which are awarded to the ten best songs. First, the results of the juries are announced, with the results presented per country. The national broadcaster connected reads the nation with the highest number of points, the other points are shown beforehand. The points of the telephone vote from the countries are added up and this total number of points is announced by the show's moderators. Until 2018, the reading took place in the order of the points received, so that the country with the most audience votes did not find out its number of points until the end. Since 2019, the reading order has been based on the ranking after the end of the jury voting. The Norwegian band KEiiNO received the highest number of points in the year of 291 points from the audience in the middle of the vote, because the jury only awarded 40 points to the contribution and it was thus placed in the middle of the field.

If a problem arises at short notice that prevents the determination by telephone voting, the points are awarded based on an average of countries that have voted similarly in previous years. This also applies to a disqualification of the jury result. Since 2013, TV viewers have also been able to vote using a mobile app . The application shows information on current events at the Eurovision Song Contest, and votes are cast directly from the mobile app via SMS.

Regulations in the event of a tie

If two or more participants have the same number of points at the end, further differentiation criteria apply to ensure a clear placement. First of all, the number of countries from which the respective participants have received points is decisive. If this does not result in a clear ranking, the number of maximum scores given to the respective participants will be taken into account. The number of 12-point evaluations is evaluated first, in the event of equality, the number of 10-point evaluations and so on. Only in the event that the comparison of all individual scores does not reveal any difference, the countries concerned will be placed in the order of the start numbers.

This catalog of rules has so far been used once to determine the winner, namely at the ESC 1991 , when the Swede Carola ("Fångad av en stormvind") received more 10-point ratings than the tied French Amina ("Le dernier qui a parlé “) And was declared the winner. At that time the first rule (the song wins, which has received points from more countries) did not yet exist, but if it had existed then, France would have won. In the meantime, this point has been introduced, so that in 2004, despite 50 points achieved in each case, the entry from Malta got a safe place in the 2005 final, while the one from Croatia had to go through the semifinals.

Various other scoring systems were used before 1975. At the ESC 1969 , a scoring mode that ensured low scores per participant resulted in four countries (Spain, United Kingdom, Netherlands, France) tied at the top and named equal winners.

Criticism of the rating system, reform discussion and new regulation

In the public debate, it was often noted that some countries within the same cultural area benefited each other during the vote. Displeasure over points that were perceived to be unfair has been expressed since the beginning of the event, which only switched to a majority telephone vote in the 43rd year. Above all, political tendencies and boycotts were criticized, which only occupy a subordinate point in the criticism.

New regulation from 2008

The responsible European Broadcasting Union (European Broadcasting Union, EBU) presented on October 2, 2007 Rule changes: As of 2008, two separate semi-finals were held, it was decided by lot over their assemblies. All countries were entitled to vote in the semifinals in which they participated. Those who qualified for the final were each assigned to a broadcast. The nine best-placed athletes moved into the finals, along with the best-rated one of the back-up juries, who would not have reached the finals without them.

New regulation from 2009

In 2009 there were far-reaching changes with regard to the voting procedure in the final. After only the audience had decided on the scores in the years 2004–2008, the jury's original idea was taken up again. From then on, this jury, whose members should have a connection to music, was given an equal say in each participating country. For the preliminary rounds, those responsible stuck to the previous year's concept.

The European Broadcasting Union justified its decision by stating that the results of replacement juries, which were supposed to ensure that points were awarded smoothly in the event of technical breakdowns, have increasingly differed from the official result in recent years. The NDR manager Ralph Quibeldey also emphasized the aspect that, in contrast to the majority of television viewers, jurors listened to the contributions several times and would be able to make a more differentiated judgment. In the public eye, on the other hand, the reforms were mainly interpreted as reactions to the lower positions of many Western countries, especially the financially strongest Big 5 . Observers saw an attempt to purposefully suppress culturally determined differences in taste among Eastern European and Central Asian viewers and accused the proponents of the new mode of building blocks and of neglecting the individual quality of the contributions. The star titled the German jurors because of their composition as a "fun jury". In fact, ten of the eleven east-oriented participants achieved poorer placements as a result of the mixed voting; one was able to maintain its overall ranking despite a lower jury rating.

New regulation from 2010

In September 2009, the European Broadcasting Union announced that the juries would vote 50% in both the separate semi-final rounds and in the final. In addition, voting was allowed from the beginning of the first song until 15 minutes after the end of the last song.

New regulation from 2012

In 2012 , the lines were only opened again after the presentation of the last song, because very little use was made of the possibility of voting during the song presentations.

New regulation from 2013

In 2013, the mode of determining the overall rating of a country from the audience and jury ratings was changed. While the two ratings from one country have previously only been converted into the well-known point scheme of 12 to 1 (and 16 times "0" for 26 entries in the final) and these points were then added, the positions are now in the order from 1 to 26 added to determine the overall ranking. This means that a contribution that is very far behind with the jury or the audience will no longer score points even if the other voters were given a top rating. At the 2014 final, for example, Russia got the most votes from Montenegro; Since the jury only rated Russia in 23rd place, Russia did not receive any points from Montenegro. On the other hand, the jury placed the entry from Armenia almost uniformly in 1st place, but in televoting it was ranked 10th, which resulted in 2nd place and 10 points on average.

New regulation from 2014

In order to counter the critical opinions that arose in 2013 regarding the purchase of votes, the exact rankings of all jury members, the entire jury vote as well as the televoting positions of each country have been published on the official website immediately after the final. All detailed results of the two semi-final rounds were also given. Since the Georgian jury members had unanimously listed the same countries in place 1–8 in the respective rankings of the final, these evaluations were canceled and only the televoting was counted. However, there were no penalties for Georgia participating in the 2015 ESC.

New regulation from 2016

On February 18, 2016, the EBU announced a change in the awarding of points. From now on, the points of the juries and the telephone vote were no longer combined individually for each country, but rather awarded separately. In the classic format, all countries presented their points to the jury one after the other. The ten best rated countries receive points, as usual from 1 to 12. After all points have been awarded by the jury, all points from the televoting of all countries are combined. The presenters of the show then present these combined points, starting with the country that received the fewest points. This means that each country awards twice as many points as usual with a maximum of 24 points for a country. The aim with the new regulation is to increase the tension and also to prevent the jury and telephone evaluations from canceling each other out.

New regulation from 2018

On April 27, 2018, the EBU announced that the rules for the 2018 jury voting would be slightly modified. According to the previous procedure, all five jurors from each country created a ranking. The overall result of the jury was determined by determining the average ranking of all jury members for each entry and then assigning the corresponding points to the ten best-placed entries. Each vote had the same weighting. In the past, however, this linear evaluation system was often criticized for the high influence of a strongly deviating evaluation by a juror on the overall evaluation of the jury. For example, a country could barely achieve 12 points if four jury members put a country in first place, while the remaining fifth juror put the country in 26th place. The new system provides an exponential valuation model. After that, the jurors will continue to create a ranking. However, each place is assigned an exponentially descending (not necessarily an integer) score value, starting with 12 points for the first place and one point for the last place. The upper ranking places (especially places 1 to 3) are now given a higher weighting than lower ranking places. The average score values ​​for all jury members are then determined and points 1–8, 10 or 12 are assigned to the ten best-placed entries. The aim of this new system is to avoid that a strongly negative deviating evaluation of one juror compared to the other jurors has too much influence on the overall result.

zero points

Some countries that came in last did not receive a point for their contribution. These contributions received zero points, which is often considered a major disaster for the participating countries. The zero points occurred for the first time at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1962, when four countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Spain) did not receive a point. Due to the different voting systems in the history of the competition, it was not always possible to get zero points, depending on the voting system. From 1957 to 1970 there were often zero points, as sometimes only three sets of points were awarded or even only one contribution could receive all points. From 1971 to 1973 every contribution was rated with at least one point, so no contribution could achieve zero points. It was only from 1975 to 2015 that it was not possible to receive any points again. Since 2004, with the introduction of a semifinal, it was also possible for a country to receive zero points in the semifinals. Another country could have received zero points in the final. Since two semifinals have been taking place since 2008, zero points can occur in both semifinals and the final. Since the jury and televoting points have been awarded separately since 2016, it has since become very unlikely not to have received at least one point from either the jury or televoting. Since then, however, it has been possible to receive zero points from tele or jury voting.

Zero points from 1957 to 1970

Each year from 1962 to 1965 there were four countries that did not receive a point. After that, in the period from 1966 to 1970, only four times a country received zero points.

year	country	Interpreter	song	place
1962	Belgium	Fud Leclerc	Tone nom	13th (of 13th)
	Netherlands	De Spelbrekers	Katinka
	Austria	Eleanor Black	Only in the Viennese air
	Spain	Victor Balaguer	Llámame
1963	Finland	Laila Halme	Muistojeni laulu	13th (of 13th)
	Netherlands	Annie Palms	Een speeldoos
	Norway	Anita Thallaug	Solhverv
	Sweden	Monica Zetterlund	En gång in Stockholm
1964	BR Germany	Nora Nova	You get used to the beautiful so quickly	13th (of 13th)
	Yugoslavia	Sabahudin Kurt	Život je sklopio jug
	Portugal	António Calvário	Oração
	Switzerland	Anita Traversi	I miei pensieri
1965	Belgium	Lize brand	As het weer lente is	15th (of 15th)
	BR Germany	Ulla Wiesner	Paradise where are you
	Finland	Viktor Klimenko	Aurinko laskee was leaning
	Spain	Conchita Bautista	Qué bueno, qué bueno!
1966	Italy	Domenico Modugno	Dio, come ti amo	17th (of 17th)
	Monaco	Téréza	Bien plus go
1967	Switzerland	Géraldine	Quel cœur vas-tu briser?	17th (of 17th)
1970	Luxembourg	David Alexandre Winter	Je suis tombé du ciel	12. (of 12.)

Zero points from 1975 to 2003

From 1975 to 2003 it only happened occasionally that a country received zero points. It is also noticeable that often only one country received zero points per year during this period. Only in 1983 and 1997 did two countries receive zero points. The Eastern European preliminary decision in 1993 and the preliminary round in 1996 are not taken into account during this period.

year	country	Interpreter	song	place
1978	Norway	Jahn Teigen	Mil etter mil	20th (of 20.)
1981	Norway	Finn Kalvik	Aldri i livet	20th (of 20.)
1982	Finland	Kojo	Nuku pommiin	18th (of 18th)
1983	Turkey	Çetin Alp and the Short Waves	Opera	19. (of 20.)
	Spain	Remedios Amaya	¿Quién maneja mi barca?
1987	Turkey	Seyyal Taner and Grup Lokomotif	Şarkım sevgi üstüne	22. (of 22.)
1988	Austria	Wilfried	Lisa Mona Lisa	21st (of 21st)
1989	Iceland	Daníel Ágúst Haraldsson	Það sem enginn sér	22. (of 22.)
1991	Austria	Thomas Forstner	Venice in the rain	22. (of 22.)
1994	Lithuania	Ovidijus Vyšniauskas	Lopšinė mylimai	25. (of 25.)
1997	Norway	Gate end counter	San Francisco	24. (from 25.)
	Portugal	Celia Lawson	Antes do adeus
1998	Switzerland	Gunvor	let him	25. (of 25.)
2003	United Kingdom	Jemini	Cry baby	26. (of 26.)

Zero points from 2004 to 2015

From 2004 to 2015, the fewest occurrences of a country receiving zero points. In 2004, when the semifinals were introduced, Switzerland was the first country to receive zero points in the semifinals. When Germany and Austria each received zero points in 2015, it was the first time since 1997 that two countries received zero points and the first time since the introduction of the semi-finals that one country received zero points in the final.

year	country	Interpreter	song	place
2004	Switzerland	Piero Esteriore & the MusicStars	Celebrate	22. (SF) (of 22.)
2009	Czech Republic	Gipsy.cz	Aven Romale	18. (SF1) (of 18.)
2015	Germany	Ann Sophie	Black smoke	27. (of 27.)
	Austria	The Makemakes	I am yours	26. (of 27.)

Zero points since 2016

Since 2016, and thus since the conversion of the rating system to separate awarding of the jury and televoting results, one country has received zero points in the overall rating. However, it has often happened that a country did not receive a point in televoting or jury voting. The audience gave zero points more often than the jury. While four entries received no points from the jury, eleven from the audience.

year	country	Interpreter	song	Jury voting		Televoting		total
				place	Points	place	Points	place	Points
2016	Czech Republic	Gabriela Gunčíková	I stand	21. (of 26.)	41	26. (of 26.)	0	25. (of 26.)	41
2017	Malta	Claudia Faniello	Breathlessly	8. (SF2) (of 18.)	55	18. (SF2) (of 18.)	0	16. (SF2) (of 18.)	55
	San Marino	Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson	Spirit of the Night	18. (SF2) (of 18.)	0	17. (SF2) (of 18.)	1	18. (SF2) (of 18.)	1
	Austria	Nathan Trent	Running on Air	11. (of 26.)	93	26. (of 26.)	0	16. (of 26.)	93
	Spain	Manel Navarro	Do It for Your Lover	26. (of 26.)	0	22. (of 26.)	5	26. (of 26.)	5
2018	Iceland	Ari Ólafsson	Our choice	18. (SF1) (of 18.)	15th	18. (SF1) (of 18.)	0	18. (SF1) (of 18.)	15th
2019	Austria	Pænda	Limits	16. (SF2) (of 18.)	21	18. (SF2) (of 18.)	0	17. (SF2) (of 18.)	21
	Israel	Kobi Marimi	Home	26. (of 26.)	0	19. (of 26.)	35	23rd (of 26th)	35
	Germany	S! Sters	Sister	21. (of 26.)	24	26. (of 26.)	0	25. (of 26.)	24
2021	Czech Republic	Benny Cristo	omaga	13. (SF2) (of 17.)	23	17. (SF2) (of 17.)	0	15. (SF2) (of 17.)	23
	Netherlands	Jeangu Macrooy	Birth of a New Age	23rd (of 26th)	11	23rd (of 26th)	0	23rd (of 26th)	11
	Spain	Blow Cantó	Voy a quedarm	24. (of 26.)	6th	23rd (of 26th)	0	24. (of 26.)	6th
	Germany	Jendrik	I don't feel hate	25. (of 26.)	3	23rd (of 26th)	0	25. (of 26.)	3
	United Kingdom	James Newman	Embers	26. (of 26.)	0	23rd (of 26th)	0	26. (of 26.)	0

Awarding and awarding of prizes

The award (trophy) presented to the interpreter of the winning title is passed on to the songwriter of the song, in whose possession it ultimately remains, since the basic idea of ​​the Eurovision Song Contest is purely a competition for composers and lyricists. The interpreter himself is not considered. All that remains for him is the increased level of awareness that he can use to build his own career.

Eternal leaderboard

→ Main article : List of the 50 most successful entries in the Eurovision Song Contest

successes

→ Main article : List of winners and events of the Eurovision Song Contest

Country Statistics

So far the most successful participating country is Ireland with seven victories, from 1992 to 1994 even three in a row. So far, 27 countries have won, with Yugoslavia, which won in 1989, no longer existing. While Salvador Sobral (Portugal) holds the record with 758 points for Amar pelos dois from 2017, Anne-Marie David (for Luxembourg) achieved the highest relative score with Tu te reconnaîtras in 1973 with 80.6% of the points.

Most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest

The following list shows the most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest measured by their placements in 2019. The total number of points, the total number of participants and the point average are also given.

Most successful countries

place	country	1.	2.	3.	Next best placement (number)	Total points without SF	Total participations	Average points per voting country in the 12-point system (from 2016: points halved for comparability)
01.	Ireland	07th	04th	01	04. (three times)	3,292	53 (of which 8 × SF)	3.03
02.	Sweden	06th	01	06th	04. (twice)	5,067	59 (including 1 × SF)	3.65
03.	United Kingdom	05	15th	03	04. (five times)	4.033	62	2.97
04th	France	05	05	07th	04. (seven times)	3,580	62	2.49
05.	Netherlands	05	01	01	04. (twice)	2,951	60 (including 9 × SF)	2.07
06th	Luxembourg	05	0	02	04. (five times)	1,423	37	2.55
07th	Israel	04th	02	01	04. (twice)	3,073	42 (including 6 × SF) + 1 Qfkr.	2.51
08th.	Italy	03	03	05	04. (twice)	3,409	46	3.72
09.	Denmark	03	01	03	04. (twice)	2,620	48 (including 4 × SF) + 1 Qfkr.	2.62
10.	Norway	03	01	01	04. (three times)	3,305	58 (including 3 × SF)	2.46
11.	Germany	02	04th	05	04. (four times)	3,105	63 + 1 Qfkr.	2.51
12th	Spain	02	04th	01	04. (twice)	2,736	59	2.01
13th	Switzerland	02	03	04th	04. (six times)	2,555	61 (of which 11 × SF)	2.01
14th	Ukraine	02	02	01	04. (once)	2,255	15th	3.92
15th	Austria	02	0	01	04. (once)	1,904	51 (including 5 × SF)	1.72
16.	Russia	01	04th	04th	05. (once)	3,326	23 (including 1 × SF) + 1 Qfkr.	4.01
17th	Belgium	01	02	0	04. (four times)	2,503	62 (including 10 × SF)	1.93
18th	Monaco	01	01	03	04. (three times)	738	24 (including 3 × SF)	1.89
19th	Turkey	01	01	01	04. (three times)	1.996	34 (including 1 × SF)	2.33
20th	Azerbaijan	01	01	01	04. (once)	1,710	12 (including 1 × SF)	3.44
21.	Greece	01	0	03	05. (twice)	2,891	40 (including 2 × SF)	2.83
22nd	Estonia	01	0	01	04. (once)	1,219	26 (of which 9 × SF) + 1 Qfkr.	1.97
23	Latvia	01	0	01	05. (once)	971	20 (including 10 × SF)	1.72
24	Serbia	01	0	01	06. (once)	1,056	12 (including 3 × SF)	2.80
25th	Yugoslavia	01	0	0	04. (three times)	1,013	27	2.89
26th	Finland	01	0	0	06. (once)	1,480	53 (of which 8 × SF)	1.45
27	Portugal	01	0	0	06. (once)	2.014	51 (of which 9 × SF)	1.33
28.	Malta	0	02	02	05. (once)	1,950	32 (including 7 × SF)	2.26
29	Iceland	0	02	0	04. (once)	1,546	32 (including 7 × SF)	1.83
30th	Bulgaria	0	01	0	04. (once)	1,079	12 (of which 8 × SF)	1.53
31.	Cyprus	0	01	0	05. (three times)	1,570	36 (including 6 × SF)	1.70
32.	Australia	0	01	0	05. (once)	1,164	05	5.62
33.	Poland	0	01	0	07. (once)	809	22 (of which 8 × SF)	1.55
34.	Serbia and Montenegro	0	01	0	07. (once)	400	02	5.48
35.	Romania	0	0	02	04. (once)	1,470	20 (including 2 × SF) + 2 Qfkr.	2.01
36.	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	0	01	06. (once)	1,242	19 (including 1 × SF)	2.23
37.	Moldova	0	0	01	06. (once)	998	15 (including 5 × SF)	1.58
38.	Croatia	0	0	0	04. (twice)	1,216	25 (including 7 × SF)	1.84
39.	Armenia	0	0	0	04. (twice)	1,276	13 (including 3 × SF)	2.85
40	Hungary	0	0	0	04. (once)	1,019	17 (including 3 × SF) + 2 Qfkr.	1.61
41.	Albania	0	0	0	05. (once)	594	16 (including 7 × SF)	1.49
42.	Lithuania	0	0	0	06. (once)	834	20 (including 7 × SF)	1.16
43.	Czech Republic	0	0	0	06. (once)	479	08 (including 5 × SF)	0.31
44.	Belarus	0	0	0	06. (once)	368	16 (including 10 × SF)	1.17
45.	Slovenia	0	0	0	07. (twice)	725	25 (including 10 × SF)	1.15
46.	North Macedonia	0	0	0	07. (once)	674	19 (including 10 × SF) + 1 Qfkr.	1.25
47.	Georgia	0	0	0	09. (twice)	919	12 (including 5 × SF)	1.76
48.	Montenegro	0	0	0	13. (once)	81	11 (of which 9 × SF)	0.95
49.	Slovakia	0	0	0	18. (once)	42	07 (including 4 × SF) +1 Qfkr.	0.76
50.	Morocco	0	0	0	18. (once)	91	01	0.76
51.	San Marino	0	0	0	19. (once)	7th	10 (of which 8 × SF)	0.39
52.	Andorra	0	0	0	SF 12. (once)	-	06 (only SF)	-
total						79,920	1,574 (including 210 × SF) + 11 ×  Qfkr.

Note:

1. ↑ Finland achieved the third best result four times in seventh place. Portugal, on the other hand, only achieved this twice.
2. ↑ Serbia and Montenegro only took part twice, so that Poland can automatically show a better ranking due to its increased participation.
3. ↑ Bosnia and Herzegovina's third best result is 7th (1999). Moldova, on the other hand, achieved the third-best result twice in 10th place (2007, 2018).
4. ↑ Croatia's second best result is once place 5 (1998). Armenia's second-best result, on the other hand, is 7th twice (2010, 2016)
5. ↑ Lithuania's second best result is 9th place, which was achieved once (2016).
6. ↑ The Czech Republic's second best result is 11th place, which was achieved once (2019).
7. ↑ Belarus' second best result is 16th place, which was achieved twice (2013, 2014).
8. ↑ As Morocco only took part once, Slovakia automatically achieved a better second-best result through their further participation.

• SF = semifinals = semifinals, Qfkr. = Qualifying round

Competition winner

Frequency of victories

place	number the victories	country	Victories
1.	7th	Ireland	1970 , 1980 , 1987 , 1992 , 1993 , 1994 , 1996
2.	6th	Sweden	1974 , 1984 , 1991 , 1999 , 2012 , 2015
3.	5	France	1958 , 1960 , 1962 , 1969 , 1977
		Luxembourg	1961 , 1965 , 1972 , 1973 , 1983
		United Kingdom	1967 , 1969 , 1976 , 1981 , 1997
		Netherlands	1957 , 1959 , 1969 , 1975 , 2019
4th	4th	Israel	1978 , 1979 , 1998 , 2018
5.	3	Norway	1985 , 1995 , 2009
		Denmark	1963 , 2000 , 2013
		Italy	1964 , 1990 , 2021
6th	2	Spain	1968 , 1969
		Switzerland	1956 , 1988
		Germany	1982 , 2010
		Austria	1966 , 2014
		Ukraine	2004 , 2016
7th	1	Monaco	1971
		Belgium	1986
		Yugoslavia	1989
		Estonia	2001
		Latvia	2002
		Turkey	2003
		Greece	2005
		Finland	2006
		Serbia	2007
		Russia	2008
		Azerbaijan	2011
		Portugal	2017

Remarks:

1. ↑ If the number of wins is the same, they are sorted chronologically.
2. ↑ The country in bold has won the last Eurovision Song Contest so far.

Most successful countries in qualifying for the finals

Map with all countries since 2004 and the respective qualification rate in percent

When the semi-finals were introduced in 2004, not all countries had to take part. The ten best countries of the previous year as well as the big four (Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom) had already qualified for the final. However, when 28 countries took part in the semi-finals in 2007, of which only ten qualified for the final, a second semi-final was introduced in 2008. From now on, only the Big Four (from 2011 Big Five , since Italy participated again) and the host country were qualified for the final. All remaining countries were split into two semi-finals. Of these, the top ten qualified in each semi-final. This system will continue to apply so that each country will have a certain level of success in qualifying for the finals.

The following table shows all countries that have participated in a semi-final since 2004. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom are therefore not listed here. The 43 countries listed are sorted according to their qualifications as a percentage. The quota is calculated from the number of semi-finals and the number of qualifications. If a country has the same percentage of qualifications, participation in the semi-finals and the number of qualifications decide on the placement.

In 2019, only Australia and Ukraine made it to the final of every participation. All other countries have already failed to qualify for the finals.

Success in the semi-final qualification (as of 2019 )

place	country	Semi-finals	Number of qualifications	Last final qualification	Qualification in percent
01.	Ukraine	11	11	2018	100%
02.	Australia	04th	04th	2019	100%
03.	Azerbaijan	11	10	2019	091%
	Russia
	Sweden
06th	Bosnia and Herzegovina	08th	07th	2012	088%
07th	Turkey	07th	06th	2012	086%
08th.	Greece	13th	11	2019	085%
09.	Romania	12th	10	2017	083%
10.	Armenia	13th	10	2017	077%
	Norway			2019
	Hungary			2018
13th	Serbia	11	08th	2019	072%
14th	Denmark	14th	10	2019	071%
15th	Moldova	14th	09	2018	064%
16.	Georgia	12th	07th	2016	059%
17th	Israel	14th	08th	2018  a.	057%
18th	Albania	15th	08th	2019	053%
	Iceland			2019
	Lithuania			2018
	Cyprus			2019
22nd	Malta	14th	07th	2019	050%
23	Austria	10	05	2018	050%
24	Finland	15th	07th	2018	047%
25th	Croatia	13th	06th	2017	046%
26th	Estonia	16	07th	2019	044%
	Netherlands
28.	Ireland	14th	06th	2018	043%
29	Poland	13th	05	2017	038%
30th	North Macedonia	16	06th	2019	037%
	Slovenia
	Belarus
33.	Czech Republic	08th	03	2019	037%
34.	Belgium	15th	05	2017	033%
	Latvia			2016
36.	Bulgaria	12th	04th	2018	033%
37.	Portugal	13th	04th	2017  b.	031%
38.	Switzerland	15th	04th	2019	027%
39.	San Marino	10	02	2019	020%
40	Montenegro	11	02	2015	018%
41.	Monaco	03	00	-	000%
42.	Slovakia	04th	00	-	000%
43.	Andorra	06th	00	-	000%

Remarks:

^a. Since Israel won the competition in 2018, the country hosted the competition in 2019 and was therefore already qualified to host the finals.

^b.Since Portugal won the competition in 2017, the country hosted the competition in 2018 and was therefore already qualified to host the final. In 2019, however, the country missed the qualification for the final.

Most successful languages

→ Main article : Languages ​​at the Eurovision Song Contest

Most successful languages ​​at the Eurovision Song Contest

Victories	language	year	country
31	English	1967 , 1969 , 1970 , 1974 , 1975 , 1976 , 1980 , 1981 , 1987 , 1992 , 1993 , 1994 , 1996 , 1997 , 1999 , 2000 , 2001 , 2002 , 2003 , 2005 , 2006 , 2008 , 2009 , 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2018 , 2019	Azerbaijan , Denmark , Germany , Estonia , Finland , Greece , Ireland , Israel , Latvia , Netherlands , Norway , Austria , Russia , Sweden , Turkey , United Kingdom
14th	French	1956 , 1958 , 1960 , 1961 , 1962 , 1965 , 1969 , 1971 , 1972 , 1973 , 1977 , 1983 , 1986 , 1988	Belgium , France , Luxembourg , Monaco , Switzerland , Denmark
3	Hebrew	1978 , 1979 , 1998	Israel
	Dutch	1957 , 1959 , 1969	Netherlands
	Italian	1964 , 1990 , 2021	Italy
2	German	1966 , 1982	Germany , Austria
	Norwegian	1985 , 1995	Norway
	Swedish	1984 , 1991	Sweden
	Croatian / Serbian	1989 , 2007	Yugoslavia , Serbia
	Spanish	1968 , 1969	Spain
1	Danish	1963	Denmark
	Crimean Tatar 1	2016	Ukraine
	Portuguese	2017	Portugal
	Ukrainian 1	2004	Ukraine

¹ Most of the songs were sung in the respective language. Some of the contributions were also sung in English.

Most common last place

In addition to the many successful countries, there are some countries in the competition that often end up in last place. Until 2003 it was only possible that there was only one last place to be found in the final. From 2004 to 2007 there was also a last place in the semi-finals (SF). Since there have been two semi-finals since 2008, there is now one last place for a semi-final and at the end one for the final. The last places in the jury and televoting through the 50/50 system since 2009, the Eastern European preliminary decision in 1993 and the 1996 qualification round are not taken into account here.

Frequency of last place (as of 2019 )

place	country	Number of last places	Years
01.	Finland	11	1963 , 1965 , 1968 , 1980 , 1982 , 1990 , 1992 , 1996 , 2009 , 2015 (SF), 2019 (SF)
	Norway		1963 , 1969 , 1974 , 1976 , 1978 , 1981 , 1990 , 1997 , 2001 , 2004 , 2012
03.	Austria	09	1957 , 1961 , 1962 , 1979 , 1984 , 1988 , 1991 , 2012 (SF), 2015
	Switzerland		1964 , 1967 , 1974 , 1998 , 2004 (SF), 2010 (SF), 2011 , 2015 (SF), 2016 (SF)
05.	Belgium	08th	1961 , 1962 , 1965 , 1973 , 1979 , 1985 , 1993 , 2000
	Germany		1964 , 1965 , 1974 , 1995 , 2005 , 2008 , 2015 , 2016
07th	Netherlands	05	1958 , 1962 , 1963 , 1968 , 2011 (SF)
	Spain		1962 , 1965 , 1983 , 1999 , 2017
	United Kingdom		2003 , 2008 , 2010 , 2019 , 2021
010.	Latvia	04th	2009 (SF), 2010 (SF), 2013 (SF), 2017 (SF)
11.	Ireland	03	2007 , 2013 , 2019 (SF)
	Iceland		1989 , 2001 , 2018 (SF)
	Luxembourg		1958 , 1960 , 1970
	Malta		1971 , 1972 , 2006
	Turkey		1975 , 1983 , 1987
16.	Georgia	02	2014 (SF), 2018 (SF)
	Lithuania		1994 , 2005 (SF)
	Monaco		1959 , 1966
	Portugal		1997 , 2018
	San Marino		2008 (SF), 2017 (SF)
	Sweden		1963 , 1977
	Czech Republic		2007 (SF), 2009 (SF)
23	Andorra	01	2006 (SF)
	Denmark		2002
	Estonia		2016 (SF)
	France		2014
	Italy		1966
	Yugoslavia		1964
	Moldova		2014 (SF)
	Poland		2011 (SF)
	Slovakia		2012 (SF)
	Slovenia		2013 (SF)
	Hungary		2008 (SF)
	Cyprus		1986
35.	Albania	00	-
	Armenia
	Azerbaijan
	Australia
	Bosnia and Herzegovina
	Bulgaria
	Greece
	Israel
	Croatia
	Morocco
	Montenegro
	North Macedonia
	Romania
	Russia
	Serbia
	Serbia and Montenegro
	Ukraine
	Belarus

Most common zero points

Some countries, which often ended up in the last place, received no points for their contributions. The countries that are most frequently affected by this can be found in the following list. Also listed are the zero points in the jury (J) or televoting (T), which has been awarded separately since 2016, as well as the zero points in the semifinals (SF).

Frequency of zero points (as of 2019 )

place	country	Number of zero points	Years
1.	Austria	5	1962 , 1988 , 1991 , 2015 , 2017 (T)
	Germany		1964 , 1965 , 2015 , 2019 (T), 2021 (T)
03.	Norway	4th	1963 , 1978 , 1981 , 1997
	Switzerland		1964 , 1967 , 1998 , 2004 (SF)
	Spain		1962 , 1965 , 2017 (J) , 2021 (T)
06th	Finland	3	1963 , 1965 , 1982
	Czech Republic		2009 (SF) , 2016 (T) , 2021 (SF) (T)
	Netherlands		1962 , 1963 , 2021 (T)
09.	Belgium	2	1962 , 1965
	Iceland		1989 , 2018 (SF) (T)
	Portugal		1964 , 1997
	United Kingdom		2003 , 2021
	Turkey		1983 , 1987
14th	Israel	1	2019 (J)
	Italy		1966
	Lithuania		1994
	Luxembourg		1970
	Malta		2017 (SF) (T)
	Monaco		1966
	San Marino		2017 (SF) (J)
	Sweden		1963

Most successful artist

Johnny Logan (1980)

The most successful participant comes from Ireland: Johnny Logan won twice as a singer ( 1980 with What's Another Year and 1987 with Hold Me Now ) and once as a composer ( 1992 : Why Me ).

The most successful participants according to the achieved share of the maximum number of mathematically possible points were Anne-Marie David with the song Tu te reconnaîtras (1973; 80.6% of the possible points), Brotherhood of Man with Save Your Kisses for Me (1976; 80.4 %) and Nicole with a little peace (1982; 78.9%). Since 1997 (points are no longer awarded exclusively by juries), the most successful participants have been Katrina and the Waves with Love Shine a Light (1997; 78.8%), Alexander Rybak with Fairytale (2009; 78.7%) and Måns Zelmerlöw with Heroes ( 2015; 78.0%).

Most frequent participations by an artist

Both the Norwegian Elisabeth Andreassen , the Swiss band Peter, Sue & Marc , the Belgian Fud Leclerc and the Sammarinese singer Valentina Monetta each took four times and thus most part in the competition: Andreassen won the competition in 1985 as part of the Bobbysocks , about In 1982 she also participated once for Sweden as part of the Chips duo , followed by participations for her home country in 1994 (with Jan Werner Danielsen ) and 1996. Peter, Sue & Marc represented Switzerland in 1971 , 1976 , 1979 and 1981 . They each sang their songs in a different language. In 1976 and 1981 they achieved fourth place as the best placement. Fud Leclerc from Belgium also took part four times, representing the country in 1956 , 1958 , 1960 and 1962 . His best result was 5th place in 1958. Valentina Monetta represented San Marino in 2012 , 2013 , 2014 and (together with Jimmie Wilson ) 2017 ; she was eliminated three times in the semifinals and only reached the final in 2014, where she finished 24th (third from last) place.

A number of performers were represented three times in the Eurovision Song Contest. Katja Ebstein and the Wind group each competed three times for Germany . Ebstein was successful with two third places in 1970 and 1971 and a second place in 1980. With two second places in 1985 and 1987, the Wind group is also one of the successful participants for Germany. In 1992 the Wind group was only 16th.

The Swede Carola Häggkvist achieved three wins for her home country (1991) and places 3 (1983) and 5 (2006). The Maltese Chiara also competed three times , finishing 3rd (1998), 2nd (2005) and 22nd (2009) for Malta. Several performers who participated several times competed for different countries. The Cypriot Anna Vissi sang twice for Greece (1980, 2006) and once for Cyprus (1982). The Frenchman Romuald took part twice for Monaco (1964, 1974) and once for Luxembourg (1979). Ireen Sheer appeared as a solo artist once for Luxembourg (1974) and once for Germany (1978) and as part of a group again for Luxembourg (1985).

The singer Corry Brokken competed in the first three competitions between 1956 and 1958 for the Netherlands, the singer Lys Assia for Switzerland in the same years. Udo Jürgens competed three times for Austria between 1964 and 1966. Each of these three participants could decide the competition once for their country. Assia won the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, Brokken was successful a year later, and Jürgens won in 1966.

The Italian Domenico Modugno (1958, 1959, 1966), the Norwegian Kirsti Sparboe (1965, 1967, 1969) and the Danish duo Hot Eyes (1984, 1985, 1988) also took part three times .

The Austrian Gary Lux has been to the Song Contest six times: the first time in 1983 as a member of the group Westend (place 9/20), 1984 as a background singer for Anita (place 19/19), 1985 as a soloist (place 8/19), 1987 as a soloist (place 20/22), 1993 as background singer for Tony Wegas (place 14/25) and 1995 as background singer for Stella Jones (place 13/23).

Successful titles

Over the decades, the Eurovision Song Contest has produced numerous songs that have become international successes and sometimes evergreens . Examples are the Italian contributions Nel blu dipinto di blu (Volare) and Piove (Ciao ciao bambina) , both of which were presented by Domenico Modugno in 1958 and 1959, respectively. Although not competition winners, these songs have been sold millions of times around the world and adapted by singers like Paul Anka and Dean Martin . Songs from the Song Contest were particularly successful commercially from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s. Puppet on a String became a worldwide radio and hit parade success for singer Sandie Shaw in 1967 and was used as background music in commercials and at fashion shows of the time. From the same year, the Luxembourg contribution by Vicky Leandros L'amour est bleu came in an instrumental version by Paul Mauriat at number 1 on the US Billboard charts. In 1972 Vicky Leandros won the competition with Après toi and sold more than 5½ million copies of the single in several language versions (Then came you, Come what May) worldwide. Waterloo by ABBA surpassed that mark in 1974 with the sale of approximately 6 million. So far, according to the sales figures, Brotherhood of Man with the hit pop Save your kisses for me with 6½ million records sold worldwide have been the most successful.

Other international top hits are Congratulations by Cliff Richard (GBR 1968), All kinds of everything by Dana (IRL 1970), Beg, steal or borrow by the New Seekers (GBR 1972), Eres tú by Mocedades (ESP 1973), Sì by Gigliola Cinquetti (ITA 1974), Dschinghis Khan by Dschinghis Khan (DEU 1979), What's another year by Johnny Logan (IRL 1980), A bit of peace by Nicole (DEU 1982), Gente di mare by Umberto Tozzi and Raf (ITA 1987), Insieme 1992 by Toto Cutugno (ITA 1990), Diva by Dana International (ISR 1998) and Fly On The Wings Of Love by the Olsen Brothers (DNK 2000), Satellite by Lena (DEU 2010) and Euphoria by Loreen (SWE 2012).

Fastest known win

The order of the voting was changed again and again; first in the starting order, later in a computer-generated order to make it as exciting as possible to see who was now the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The fastest established victory is Alexander Rybak from Norway. After 30 of 42 countries and 71.4 percent of the points given, he was the winner in 2009.

In second place is Nicole from Germany. When it took office in 1982, 18 countries were participating in the ESC. After just 14 country votes (77.8 percent), their song was the winner.

Third place goes to Katrina and the Waves from the United Kingdom. When they started in 1997, the band was the winner in 20 of 25 countries, which corresponds to 80 percent of the votes cast.

Eurovision Song Contest as a career start

Over the years, the Eurovision Song Contest turned some interpreters into international stars who were still virtually unknown at the time of their appearance.

This is particularly true of the Swedish pop group ABBA , which won the competition in 1974 with the song Waterloo . The French-Canadian singer Celine Dion also became known in Europe through her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 , in which she competed for Switzerland and won with Ne partez pas sans moi . The Belgian Lara Fabian (who later made it into the charts through I will love again ) took her first international step at the ESC for Luxembourg. The Irish folklore group Riverdance , which appeared in 1994 as a break filler, also achieved world fame through the ESC .

Awareness is not a guarantee of success

The participation of an internationally known artist is no guarantee of winning the title in the competition.

Cliff Richard came second with Congratulations in 1968 and third with Power to All Our Friends in 1973 . Subsequently, these titles were placed higher in the sales hit parades than the respective Eurovision winners.

Olivia Newton-John had already had a number of hits internationally and received a Grammy for best country singer in March 1974. When she stepped on the Eurovision stage in April of the same year, her song only reached fourth place.

1977 saw the start of an internationally very successful group at the time, Silver Convention for Germany. Like Boney M., she had conquered the charts worldwide with hit productions in disco sound ("Munich Sound") from Germany in 1976. Despite excellent betting odds and with the million-seller Fly Robin Fly and Get Up And Boogie behind them, the women's trio with the title Telegram only came in eighth.

Also Ricchi e Poveri from Italy or baccarat from Spain (both 1978) did not reach the podium, just like Matia Bazar (1979). Alan Sorrenti (1980), Alice and Franco Battiato (1984) or Al Bano & Romina Power (1976 and 1985), all interpreters from Italy were unable to establish themselves in many European countries in the early 1980s despite the Italo-Pop wave. The internationally successful Russian duo tATu took third place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with Ne wer, ne boisja . The Estonian band Vanilla Ninja did not get above rank 8 for Switzerland with Cool Vibes in 2005 . The Spanish band Las Ketchup landed a Europe-wide number one hit with the ketchup song in the summer of 2002 , but only came in 21st at the ESC 2006 with Un Blodymary . Kate Ryan failed in 2006 for Belgium in the semifinals, as did DJ BoBo in 2007 for Switzerland.

The successful pop group No Angels was also not very successful with Disappear 2008 in Serbia . Before that, however, they were only one percentage point ahead of Carolin Fortenbacher (Hinterm Ozean) in the German preliminary decision as the final participant. At the Song Contest itself they reached place 23 out of 25, with place 24 ( Poland , Isis Gee - For Life ) and 25 ( United Kingdom , Andy Abraham - Even If ) taking the last three places with 14 points each.

In 2013, Cascada for Germany was a very well-known group in Europe, but in the end they only ended up in 21st place with their song Glorious. British singer Bonnie Tyler had a similar experience , who landed in 19th place. In 2021, the American rapper Flo Rida only reached number 22 for San Marino.

Audience numbers (since 2013)

Since 2013, shortly after the competition, the EBU has announced how many viewers the program has reached in each year. It indicates the total number of viewers who watched the three programs in the respective year. The market share of the finals is also announced every year.

Audience figures since 2013

year	Total number of viewers	Market Share (Final Only)	Compared to the previous year (total number of viewers)	Compared to previous year (market share final)
2013	170 million	38.3%	-	-
2014	195 million	37.3%	+25 million	−1.0%
2015	197 million	39.6%	+2 million	+ 2.3%
2016	204 million	36.3%	+6 million	−3.3%
2017	182 million	36.3%	−22 million	± 0%
2018	186 million	35.8%	+4 million	−0.5%
2019	182 million	36.7%	−4 million	+ 0.9%

Awards

In 2016, the Eurovision Song Contest received the Charles Medal for European Media .

Reception as a queer event

The Eurovision Song Contest is very popular in the LGBT scene; Since the 1980s at the latest, gay men have been instrumental in building up the fan base of the music competition and the associated organization Organization générale des amateurs de l'Eurovision (OGAE). In addition to European diversity, queer appropriation of the competition was and is in the foreground. The kitsch aesthetic of the competition is interpreted as a deliberately exaggerated and artificial aesthetic of the camp and, in this appropriation, is celebrated as the basis of a queer, subversive identity.

Since the late 1990s, the queer subtext of the event has become increasingly visible: After an openly gay artist, Páll Óskar from Iceland, first performed in 1997, the transsexual Israeli singer Dana International won in 1998 , and the Austrian bearded drag queen Conchita Wurst in 2014 . The cultural scientist Jessica Carniel states that the modern Eurovision tradition offers queer audiences an important opportunity to experience a sense of belonging to Europe.

Anniversaries

50 year anniversary

On October 22, 2005 an anniversary show with the title Congratulations (German: "Herzlichen Glückwunsch") took place in Copenhagen . This celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest . The aim of the show was to determine the best song of the Grand Prix among all titles that have ever competed. On the official internet site eurovision.tv everyone could cast their vote for their favorite ESC title. The ten songs with the most votes made it to the semifinals. In addition, a jury from the European Broadcasting Union selected four further titles for the semifinals. In the semifinals, the five best songs were determined by telephone voting. In the second round, i.e. the final, the placement of these five songs was determined by a further telephone vote.

The show was moderated by the British ESC winner Katrina Leskanich ( Katrina and the Waves , ESC victory 1997 with Love Shine a Light ) and the Latvian Eurovision Song Contest third-placed Renars Kaupers ( Brainstorm , ESC participation 2000 with My Star ). The program was broadcast in Germany by WDR and SWR , in Austria by ORF 2 , and in Switzerland by SF 1 .

The result was as follows:

place	year	country	Interpreter	title
1.	1974	Sweden	ABBA	Waterloo
2.	1958	Italy	Domenico Modugno	Nel blu dipinto di blu (Volare)
3.	1987	Ireland	Johnny Logan	Hold me now
4th	2005	Greece	Elena Paparizou	My Number One
5.	1976	United Kingdom	Brotherhood of Man	Save your kisses for me
6th	2000	Denmark	Olsen Brothers	Fly on the wings of love
7th	1982	Germany	Nicole	A bit of peace
8th.	1968	United Kingdom	Cliff Richard	Congratulations
9.	2003	Turkey	Sertab Erener	Everyway that I can
10.	1988	Switzerland	Celine Dion	Ne partez pas sans moi
11.	1973	Spain	Mocedades	Eres tú
12th	1980	Ireland	Johnny Logan	What's Another Year
13th	1998	Israel	Dana International	diva
14th	1965	Luxembourg	France Gall	Poupée de cire, poupée de son

60 year anniversary

To mark its 60th anniversary, the BBC organized the Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits event on March 31, 2015 in London's Hammersmith Apollo . The show was moderated by Graham Norton and Petra Mede . The event was recorded and broadcast in different countries until the contest.

The following artists appeared:

• Anne-Marie David (winner 1973 , participant 1979 )	• Brotherhood of Man (Winner 1976 )
• Johnny Logan (winner 1980 , 1987 and as a composer 1992 )	• Nicole (winner 1982 )
• Herrey’s (winner 1984 )	• Bobbysocks ( 1985 winner )
• Dana International (winner 1998 , participant 2011 )	• Olsen Brothers (Winner 2000 )
• Natasha Saint-Pier (participant 2001 )	• Rosa López (participant 2002 )
• Lordi (winner 2006 )	• Dima Bilan (participant 2006, winner 2008 )
• Loreen (winner 2012 )	• Emmelie de Forest (winner 2013 )
• Conchita Wurst (winner 2014 )	• Riverdance (Interval act 1994 )

additional

Similar events

The annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest has also been held since 2003 . In 2007 and 2008 there was also the Eurovision Dance Contest .

Movie

The comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga , released on Netflix in 2020, is inspired by the competition.

attachment

literature

• Christine Ehardt, Georg Vogt, Florian Wagner (eds.): Eurovision Song Contest - A little story between body, gender and nation. Zaglossus, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-902902-32-0 .
• Clemens Dreyer, Claas Triebel , Urban Lübbeke: A bit of madness: Really everything about the Eurovision Song Contest. Verlag Antje Kunstmann, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-88897-715-2 .
• Jan Feddersen : A song can be a bridge. The German and international history of the Grand Prix Eurovision. Verlag Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-455-09350-7 .
• Jan Feddersen: There are always miracles: The big book about the Eurovision Song Contest. Structure TB, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-7466-7074-4 .
• Werner Jauk, Christian Fastl: Song Contest. In: Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon . Online edition, Vienna 2002 ff., ISBN 3-7001-3077-5 ; Print edition: Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7001-3067-8 .
• John Kennedy O'Connor: Eurovision Song Contest. With a foreword by Michael Sonneck. Gondrom, Bindlach 2005, ISBN 3-8112-2536-7 .
• Irving Wolther: Clash of Cultures: the “Eurovision Song Contest” as a means of national-cultural representation. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3357-4 .
• Mari Pajala: Finlande: zero points? The Eurovision Song Contest in the Finnish media. With a foreword by Jan Feddersen. SAXA Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-939060-07-9 .
• Tim Moore : Zero points - a bit of failure at the Eurovision Song Contest. Translated from the English by Olaf Bentkämper. Covadonga Verlag, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-936973-28-0 .
• Ivan Raykoff, Robert Dean Tobin (Eds.): A Song for Europe. Popular Music and Politics in the European Song Contest. Abingdon 2007.
• Christiane Graf: Germany : zero points, national sensitivities at the Eurovision Song Contest. In: prager spring 05.
• Irving Wolther: Music Competition vs. Competition Music: The Dilemma of the Eurovision Song Contest . In: Contributions to popular music research , Vol. 33, 2005, pp. 101–111 ( uni-giessen.de ).
• Tony Brown, Paul Gambaccini , Jonathan Rice, Tim Rice : The Complete Eurovision Song Contest Companion . Pavilion Books, London 1998, ISBN 1-86205-167-4 (160 pages plus 8 image pages, English, topic: international finals from 1956 to 1997, foreword by Terry Wogan).
• Holger Burandt: The way to the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson . Self-published, without location 1999, ISBN 3-9804141-5-9 (140 pages, topic: German preliminary decisions from 1956 to 1999).
• Jørgen de Mylius: Det danske Melodi Grand Prix . DR Multimedie, Copenhagen 2001, ISBN 87-7047-967-4 (210 large-format pages, full color illustrations, Danish, subject: Danish preliminary decisions from 1957 to 2000).
• Tschajk Freiberg: Tu te reconnaîtras - The Story of Eurovision . Self-published, Bergen 2006 (500 large-format, leather-bound pages, full color illustrations, main topics: international finals and German preliminary decisions from 1956 to 2005, incl. Bonus DVD with a 4-minute track).
• Henk Langerak: Muziek op punten - Muziek in 44 years Eurovisie Song Festival . Author's rights association Buma / Stemra, Amstelveen 1999 (40 pages, full color illustrations, Dutch, topic: general overview from 1956 to 1999 with a focus on the Netherlands).
• Leif Thorsson: Melodifestivalen genom tiderna . Premium Förlag, Stockholm 1999, ISBN 91-89136-00-4 (360 large-format pages, full color illustrations, Swedish, topics: Swedish preliminary decisions and international finals from 1958 and 1956 to 1999, including bonus CD with 18 tracks).

Web links

Commons : Eurovision Song Contest  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Eurovision Song Contest  - in the news

• Official website for the Eurovision Song Contest
• Official German website of the NDR for the Eurovision Song Contest
• Euro Vision history (English)
• All results and artists since 1956 on hitparade.ch
• Eurovision Song Contest on fernsehlexikon.de
• Televoting and jury voting per country since 2014 on eurovision.tv (English)
• Official YouTube channel for the Eurovision Song Contest (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest . In: Michael Reufsteck, Stefan Niggemeier : Das Fernsehlexikon. 2005; Retrieved January 4, 2015.
2. ↑ Our History. EBU , accessed on May 20, 2020 . 
3. ^ Lexie Cartwright: Why Australia gets a spot in Eurovision each year. In: news.com.au. May 17, 2019, accessed May 17, 2019 . 
4. ↑ Jerusalem 1999. Retrieved May 17, 2021 . 
5. ↑ Barbara Dürnberger: Who pays, creates: the "Big Five". In: Wiener Zeitung. May 21, 2015, accessed May 19, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Turkey: No return to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2017?
7. ↑ Australia takes part in the competition for the first time . oe3.orf.at; accessed on February 10, 2015
8. ↑ Song Contest 2016: Australia participates again
9. ↑ Frequently asked questions about the ESC. NDR, accessed on May 10, 2017 . 
10. ↑ Georgia is not going to Moscow . In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , accessed on March 17, 2009.
11. ^ Lebanon withdraws from Eurovision
12. ↑ 39 countries to take part in Eurovision 2013. eurovision.tv, December 21, 2012, accessed on March 14, 2014 (English). 
13. ↑ Dieter Bohlen wants to help ARD at the next Grand Prix . In: Berliner Morgenpost , May 24, 2009, according to dpa.
14. ↑ Alex Christensen. Now he's settling for the Grand Prix . In: Bild , May 24, 2009 ALEX CHRISTENSEN - Now he's settling for the Grand Prix ( Memento from June 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
15. ↑ Raab may well dress up the Grand Prix . derwesten.de , May 21, 2009.
16. ↑ Rules of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest ( Memento from April 14, 2003 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 184 kB), Article XV.1
17. ^ Eurovision.tv: Reference Group Gathered in Belgrade .
18. ↑ NDR reports from the EBU meeting in Belgrade at the end of August 2010 ( Memento from November 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
19. ↑ Rules for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 ( English , PDF; 150 kB) In: Eurovision.tv . European Broadcasting Union . P. 4. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
20. ^ Rules. January 12, 2017, accessed June 15, 2020 . 
21. ^ Official rules of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest. ( Memento of April 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 447 kB) eurovision.tv, Section 1.4 “Procedure in case of a tie in the semi-finals or in the final” (English); accessed on May 24, 2015
22. ↑ europaeische-musikwissenschaft.eu (PDF)
23. ↑ Eurovision votes 'farce' attack
24. ↑ Rule changes at eurovision.tv.
25. ↑ New regulation 2009 at ecgermany.de.
26. ↑ Jury is supposed to crack the "Eastern Bloc Mafia" . stern.de .
27. ↑ Guildo Horn is part of the new Eurovision jury . ( Memento from February 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) n24.de.
28. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest again with jury . tagesspiegel.de .
29. ↑ Storyteller hits a sex bomb . Spiegel Online .
30. ↑ "Fun Jury" awards German points . stern.de .
31. ↑ Results Televoting Only . ( Memento from August 7, 2012 on WebCite ; PDF; 65 kB) eurovision.tv.
32. ↑ Results Televoting & Jury Mixed (50/50) . ( Memento from August 6, 2009 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 70 kB) eurovision.tv
33. ↑ Original rules 2010. ( Memento from February 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 89 kB) (English).
34. ↑ 2010 rules summarized by NDR ( Memento from January 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
35. ↑ EBU restores televoting Window as from 2012 . Eurovision.tv, accessed July 2, 2011.
36. ↑ Serious allegations after the ESC 2013 - Were votes bought? n-tv.de
37. ↑ eurovision.tv, Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 Grand Final ( Memento from May 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
38. ↑ Results of the competitions since 2014 Eurovision.tv, accessed on May 21, 2014.
39. ↑ Radical change in the voting for the ESC on eurovision.de
40. ↑ Subtle but significant: EBU changes weight of individual jury rankings. In: eurovision.tv. April 27, 2018, accessed April 27, 2018 . 
41. ↑ Renske ten Veen: Eurovision 2018: EBU unveils slightly tweaked method to calculate jury scores. In: wiwibloggs.com. April 27, 2018, accessed April 27, 2018 . 
42. ↑ Thomas O'Neil: The Grammys - The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to Music's Highest Honor , A Variety Book, USA 1999, p. 210.
43. ↑ Eurovision 2013 reaches 170 million worldwide. In: eurovision.tv. EBU , May 28, 2013, accessed on May 17, 2020 . 
44. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest 2014 reaches 195 million worldwide. In: eurovision.tv. EBU , May 9, 2014, accessed on May 17, 2020 . 
45. ↑ Nearly 200 million people watch Eurovision 2015. In: eurovision.tv. EBU , June 3, 2015, accessed on May 17, 2020 . 
46. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest attracts 204 million viewers! In: eurovision.tv. EBU , May 24, 2016, accessed on May 17, 2020 . 
47. ↑ Eurovision Song Contest 2017 Reaches Over 180 Million Viewers. In: ebu.ch. EBU , May 23, 2017, accessed on May 17, 2020 . 
48. ↑ Evert Groot: 186 million viewers for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. In: eurovision.tv. May 23, 2018, accessed May 17, 2020 . 
49. ↑ Evert Groot: 182 million viewers tuned in to the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. In: eurovision.tv. May 28, 2019, accessed May 17, 2020 . 
50. ^ ^{A b} Catherine Baker: 'The Gay World Cup' ?: the Eurovision Song Contest, LGBT equality and human rights after the Cold War. April 4, 2014, accessed May 14, 2016 . 
51. ↑ Carl F. Stychin: Queer / Euro Visions . In: Mireille Rosello, Sudeep Dasgupta (Ed.): What's Queer about Europe ?: Productive Encounters and Re-enchanting Paradigms . Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 171 188 .
52. ^ Brian Singleton, Karen Fricker, Elena Moreo: Performing the queer network. Fans and families at the Eurovision Song Contest . In: SQS . tape 2 , no. 2 , 2007, p. 12 24 ( tsv.fi [accessed May 14, 2016]).
53. ↑ Jessica Carniel: Skirting the issue: finding queer and geopolitical belonging at the Eurovision Song Contest . In: Contemporary Southeastern Europe . tape 2 , no. 1 , 2015 ( edu.au [PDF; accessed on May 14, 2016]).
54. ↑ Eurovision's Greatest Hits: Lineup complete, tickets sell out in minutes. In: escunited.com. February 6, 2015, accessed February 6, 2015 . 
55. ↑ eurovoix.com Eurovision's Greatest Hits: Riverdance to perform
56. ↑ Stefan Troebst: Review of: Ivan Raykoff, Robert Dean Tobin, (Ed.): A Song for Europe. Popular Music and Politics in the European Song Contest. Abingdon 2007 . In: H-Soz-u-Kult , February 25, 2010.