1.
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Croatia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 22 times since making its debut at the 1993 contest. Between 1993 and 2011, the Croatian entrant was selected at the Dora pop festival, Croatias best result in the contest is fourth-place finishes in 1996 and 1999. Croatia first reached the top ten in 1995, when Magazin & Lidija Horvat-Dunjko finished sixth and this would be the first of six top ten results in seven years. Maja Blagdan was fourth in 1996, Danijela Martinović was fifth in 1998, Doris Dragović was fourth in 1999, Goran Karan was ninth in 2000, since then, Croatia has failed to reach the top ten. Since the introduction of the round in 2004, Croatia has failed to reach the final on five occasions. Croatia then withdrew from the contest in 2014 and 2015, on its return in 2016, Croatia reached the final for the first time in seven years. Croatia participated at Eurovision ten times as part of Yugoslavia, in 1963,1968,1969,1971,1972,1986,1987,1988,1989 and 1990. Apart from being the most successful Yugoslav republic in the contest, it gave the socialist republic its only win, Rock Me, sung by Riva in 1989, the Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was held in Zagreb as a result. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1991, the Croatian national public broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision had organised a festival to select a Croatian representative for the 1992 Contest. If HRT had been a member of the EBU in time for the contest, Croatias first entry as an independent state was in 1993 with the band Put, performing Dont Ever Cry which was, despite the English title, also partially performed in Croatian. The song came third in the Qualification for Millstreet, which allowed their participation in the 1993 contest, Croatias best position, as of 2016, has been with Maja Blagdans 1996 entry Sveta ljubav and Doris Dragovićs 1999 entry Marija Magdalena. Along with Malta and Cyprus and Portugal, Croatia was never relegated in the 1990s, the last time Croatia qualified for the grand final was in 2009. However, on 5 May 2015, HRT announced that it wont broadcast the 2015 contest and it was the first time since 1992 for HRT to not broadcast the contest. On 26 November 2015, it was announced that Croatia would return to the contest in 2016, nina Kraljić with the song Lighthouse qualified to the final, making it that Croatia qualified for the first time since 2009. After the successful return in 2016, Croatian national broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision confirmed on 17 September 2016 that they would participate in 2017. Yugoslavian entries in 1963,1968,1969,1971,1972,1986,1987,1988,1989 and 1990 are Croatian entries that competed for Yugoslavia, ^ Spain originally gave its 12 points to Israel and 10 to Norway. After the broadcast it was announced that Spanish broadcaster wrongly tallied the votes and Germany should have got the top mark -12 points - instead of being snubbed, the mistake was corrected and so Germany was placed 7th over Norway. ^ In 2009, Croatia qualified through the back-up jury selection, if a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Feminnem at Oslo (2010)
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Klapa s Mora at Malmö (2013)
2.
Eurovision Song Contest 1992
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1992 was the 37th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 9 May 1992 in Malmö, Sweden. The presenters were Lydia Cappolicchio and Harald Treutiger, Linda Martin, representing Ireland, was the winner of this Eurovision with the song Why Me. The song was written by Johnny Logan, who had won the 1980 contest as singer and the 1987 contest as singer/songwriter. The contest took place at the ice arena of Malmö where the stage set was in the shape of a Viking ships bow with a dragon in the centre. The opening sequence included women dressed in the Swedish colours of yellow and blue, the filmic postcard tradition was continued with clips based on each country. Last years winner, Carola, appeared on stage in a dress with sheer sleeves. However, the Irish sent Linda Martin, who had the past experience of coming in 2nd place in the 1984 contest, but also paired up again with Johnny Logan. In the end, Ireland won the contest with a 16-point lead over the United Kingdom, malta with Little Child, performed by Mary Spiteri, also scored very well coming in 3rd place with 123 points. This was the first time that the three highest-placed songs had all been in English, Sweden, the host country, finished 2nd last. Switzerland had to replace its original choice of entry, Soleil, soleil which was to have performed by Géraldine Olivier. The song did not comply with some of the rules of the selection contest and so, despite having won. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs
Eurovision Song Contest 1992
3.
Eurovision Song Contest 1989
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1989 was the 34th annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 6 May 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, the program was presented by Lolita Morena and Jacques Deschenaux. Riva, representing Yugoslavia, won with the song Rock Me and this was the only victory for Yugoslavia as a unified state. The United Kingdoms Ray Caruana, lead singer with Live Report was outspoken about coming second to what he considered a less worthy song. They had been defeated by 7 points, two of the performers, Nathalie Pâque and Gili Natanael were respectively 11 and 12 years old at their time of competing. Due to bad publicity surrounding their participation, the European Broadcasting Union introduced the rule stating no performer is allowed to take part before the year of their 16th birthday. The previous years winner, Celine Dion, opened the show with a performance of her winning song. The song went on to become a top ten hit in the US a year later - effectively launching her into international success. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs
Eurovision Song Contest 1989
4.
Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. Each country awards two sets of 12,10, 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs, one from their professional jury, the current system has been in place since 2016. In 2003, Eircoms telephone polling system malfunction, irish broadcaster RTÉ did not receive the polling results from Eircom in time, and substituted votes by a panel of judges. Between 1997 and 2003, lines were opened to the public for five minutes after the performance. Between 2004 and 2006 the lines were opened for 10 minutes, in 2010 viewers were allowed to vote during the performances, but this was rescinded for the 2012 contest. The BBC contacted regional juries by telephone to choose the 1956 winners, and this method continued to be used until 1993. The following year saw the first satellite linkup to juries, to announce the votes, the contests presenters connect by satellite to each country in turn and inviting a spokesperson to read the countrys votes in French or English. The presenters originally repeated the votes in both languages, but since 2004 the votes have been translated due to time constraints, the scoreboard displays the number of points each country has received and, since 2008, a progress bar indicating the number of countries which have voted. Note The most-used voting system was last used for the 1969 contest and this system was used from 1957 to 1961 and from 1967 to 1969. Ten jurors in each country each cast one vote for their favourite song, in 1969 this resulted in a four-way tie for first place, with no tie-breaking procedure. A second round of voting in the event of a tie was introduced to this system the following year, from 1962 to 1966, a voting system similar to the current one was used. With the latter system, a country could choose to give points to two instead of three, in 1965, Belgium awarded the United Kingdom six points and Italy three. Although it was possible to one country nine points, this never occurred. The 1971,1972, and 1973 contests saw the jurors in vision for the first time, each country was represented by two jurors, one older than 25 and one younger, with at least ten years difference in their ages. Each juror gave a minimum of one point and a maximum of five points to each song, in 1974 the previous system of ten jurors was used, and the following year the current system was introduced. Spokespeople were next seen on screen in 1994 with a link to the venue. The 2004 contest had its first semifinal, with a change in voting. This resulted in Ukraines Ruslana finishing first, with a record 280 points, to date, non-qualifying countries are still allowed to vote in the final
Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest
–
"The Pyrenean Axis" (Andorra and Spain)
5.
Pridi, dala ti bom cvet
–
Pridi, dala ti bom cvet is a song that was Yugoslavias entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 1970. The song marked the third of four occasions in which Yugoslavias entry was performed in Slovene, the song was sung by 18-year-old Slovenian music newcomer Eva Sršen. Sršen won the right to compete for Yugoslavia after winning Pesma Evrovizije 1970, held on February 14,1970, where she competed against 14 other performers. Sršen performed fifth at the final and at the end of voting, Pridi, dala ti bom cvet received 26 points from the nine member jury and this allowed the Socialist Republic of Slovenia to represent the whole of Yugoslavia in Amsterdam. At Amsterdam, the song was performed fourth on the night, after Italys Gianni Morandi with Occhi di ragazza, the song uses the metaphor of flowers, as the singer describes that she is the flower that nobody can reach but you, the you implying her secret love. At the end of judging that evening, Pridi, dala ti bom cvet took the slot with four points. In 2010, an a cappella version by singer Barbara Mratinkovič was produced by Aldo Ivančič and published on YouTube as a retro 1970s-style musical video
Pridi, dala ti bom cvet
–
"Pridi, dala ti bom cvet"
6.
Eurovision Song Contest 1987
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1987 was the 32nd Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 9 May 1987 in Brussels, Belgium after Sandra Kims win the previous year. Johnny Logan was the winner for Ireland with the song Hold Me Now and that made him the first performer to win the contest twice, as he had won also in 1980. The 1987 Eurovision was the biggest contest at that time, with 22 countries taking part, only Malta, Monaco and Morocco failed to compete out of all the countries which had entered the contest in the past. Due to the number of countries, and the time it took for the contest to be held and this became problematic over the next few years as new and returning nations indicated an interest in participating, but could not be accommodated. Controversy erupted in Israel after their song was selected, Shir Habatlanim by the Lazy Bums, the comedic performance was criticised by the countrys culture minister, who threatened to resign should the duo proceed to Brussels. They went on to perform for Israel, placing eighth, however the culture ministers threat was left unfulfilled, host conductor in bold Notes 1. ^ Contains some phrases in English
Eurovision Song Contest 1987
7.
Subnational
–
Administrative divisions are granted a certain degree of autonomy and are usually required to manage themselves through their own local governments. Countries are divided up into smaller units to make managing their land. For example, a country may be divided into provinces, which, in turn, are divided into counties, which, in turn, may be divided in whole or in part into municipalities, and so on. Administrative divisions are separate from dependent territories, with the former being an integral part of the state. However, the administrative division can include dependent territories as well as accepted administrative divisions. For clarity and convenience the standard reference for the largest administrative subdivision of a country is called the first-level administrative division or first administrative level. Next smaller is called second-level administrative division or second administrative level, there is no fixed rule, for all politics is local as is perhaps well demonstrated by their relative lack of systemic order. In the realm of self-government, any of these can and does occur along a stretch of road—which for the most part is passing through rural unsettled countryside. In British cultural legacy, most territorial entities begin with fairly expansive counties which encompass a large area. Within those entities are the large and small cities or towns, many sister cities share a water boundary which quite often serves as a border of both cities and counties. For example, Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts appear to the traveler as one large city, while locally they each are quite culturally different. Sovereign state, a national or supra-national division, country, a national or sub-national division. Administrative division codes of the Peoples Republic of China GADM, a database of country administrative areas. ISO 3166-2, specifically Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 2
Subnational
–
World political divisions
8.
SR Croatia
–
The Socialist Republic of Croatia was a constituent republic of Yugoslavia. By its constitution, modern-day Croatia is its direct continuation, along with five other Yugoslav republics, it was formed during World War II and became a socialist republic after the war. It had four full official names during its 48-year existence, by territory and population, it was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia, after the Socialist Republic of Serbia. In 1990, the government dismantled the communist single-party system of government, the newly elected government of Franjo Tuđman moved the republic towards independence, formally seceding from Yugoslavia in 1991 and thereby contributing to its dissolution. Croatia became part of the Yugoslav federation in 1943 after the Second Session of the AVNOJ and through the resolutions of the ZAVNOH and it was officially founded as the Federal State of Croatia on May 9,1944, at the 3rd session of the ZAVNOH. On November 29,1945, the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia became the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia, accordingly, the Federal State of Croatia became Peoples Republic of Croatia. On April 7,1963, the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia was renamed into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia gradually abandoned Stalinism after the Tito-Stalin split in 1948. In 1963 the Peoples Republic of Croatia also accordingly became the Socialist Republic of Croatia, the country was re-constituted upon the breakup of Yugoslavia as the Republic of Croatia on June 25,1991. In the first years of the war, Yugoslav Partisans in Croatia did not have support of Croats, the majority of partisans on the territory of Croatia were Croatian Serbs. However, in 1943 Croats started to join partisans in larger numbers, on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia, 75-80% of partisans were ethnic Serbs. In 1943, number of Croat partisans in Croatia increased, so in 1944 they composed 61% of partisans on the territory of Croatia, on 13 June 1943 in Otočac, Lika, Croatian partisans founded the ZAVNOH, a legislative body of future Croatian republic within the Yugoslavia. Its first president was Vladimir Nazor, Partisans of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina did not have such autonomy. Because of partisan victories and increased territory held by partisans, AVNOJ decided to hold the second session in Jajce at the end of November 1943, at that session, the Yugoslav communist leadership decided to reestablish Yugoslavia as federal state. Not long after, the Communist Party started to prosecute those who opposed the communist one-party system, on January 30,1946, the Constituent Assembly made the Constitution of the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia. SR Croatia was the last of the republics to make its constitution, the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Croatia was made on January 18,1947. In their constitutions, all republics have been deprieved of gaining independence, republics had only formal autonomy, in reality, communist Yugoslavia was a centralized state, based on the Soviet model. The governments of the republics were only part of the mechanism in approval of Politburos decisions, in post-war Yugoslavia, communists had a struggle for power with the opposition that supported King Peter. The Croatian Peasant Party, part of the opposition, had divided into three branches, one supporting the Ustaše, the supporting the communists and the third supporting Vladko Maček
SR Croatia
–
" For the freedom of Croatia ", Partisan poster from World War II.
SR Croatia
–
Flag
SR Croatia
–
Ivan Šubašić, Prime Minister of Yugoslavia in exile and prominent member of the Croatian Peasant Party.
SR Croatia
–
Vladimir Bakarić, the first Prime Minister of the SR Croatia.
9.
Croatian Radio Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision is a Croatian public broadcasting company. It operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmitter network as well as satellite, Croatian Radiotelevision has three organizational units, three sister companies - the Croatian Radio, the Croatian Television and Music Production. Croatian Radiotelevision is the successor of the Radio station Zagreb that started broadcasting on 15 May 1926 under its first director and co-founder. During the first 14 years of its existence the Zagreb Radio station was owned by a private corporation, Radio Zagreb was nationalized on 1 May 1940. During the Independent State of Croatia, the station was known as Hrvatski krugoval, after World War II it began to operate as a state-owned radio station. Zagreb Radio station was the first public broadcasting facility in the southeast European area, at the end of the first year of operation, Radio Zagreb company had a little over four thousand subscribers. On the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Zagreb Radio station, on 15 May 1956, for the next two years this was the only TV broadcasting service in the southeast European area. This was the first TV station in Yugoslavia and would become a color station in 1972. In June 1990, the Croatian Parliament renamed the company from Radiotelevizija Zagreb to Hrvatska radiotelevizija, on 1 January 1993, HRT was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union. The television channels were aired under the name Croatian Television, Hrvatska televizija between 1990 and 1993, since then, the current name is used. The radio broadcast unit is referred to as Croatian Radio, Hrvatski radio, HRT1 - HRTs first TV channel, previously known as TVZ1. This is a generalist channel with daily news around the world, documentaries, HRT2 - HRTs second channel, previously known as TVZ2. It is primarily used for broadcasts and entertainment programmes. The channel is known for its footage of vintage films. HRT3 - HRTs third channel, primarily used for culture, films and it was popular during the late 90s, and taken off-air in 2004. It returned to air in September 2012, HRT4 - HRTs fourth channel, broadcasting news programmes, started airing in December 2012. In the 1980s there was a channel called Z3 and later HTV Z3. It was taken off air on 16 September 1991 when its main transmitter, on 7 November 1994 the channel came back on air, this time called HRT3
Croatian Radio Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision Hrvatska radiotelevizija
Croatian Radio Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision headquarters at Prisavlje, Zagreb
Croatian Radio Television
–
Dnevnik is one of HRT's popular news-programs.
Croatian Radio Television
–
HRT's outside broadcasting truck
10.
Macedonian Radio-Television
–
Macedonian Radio Television is the public broadcasting organization of the Republic of Macedonia. It was founded in 1993 by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, MRT is directed by Petar Karanakov. An industry outsider, Karanakov was selected for his independent politics and strong reputation for integrity, Macedonian Television broadcasts 73 hours of programmes daily on its three national terrestrial and two international satellite channels. Terrestrial MRT1 broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme, MRT1 HD simulcasts the programme of MRT1 in HD quality. MRT2 broadcasts programmes for the minorities in the Republic of Macedonia. Albanian, Turkish, as well as programmes in Serbian, Romany, Vlach, MRT2 HD simulcasts the programme of MRT2 in HD quality. MRT3 will broadcast a new category of programmes yet to be announced, MRT Sobraniski Kanal was formed in 1991 as an experimental channel, but now it broadcasts the activities from the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. MRT Sobraniski Kanal HD simulcasts the programme of MRT Sobraniski Kanal in HD quality, Satellite MRT Sat started in 2000 and broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme, which are a selection of programmes from MRT, as well as its original programme of 5 hours. The station also broadcasts to Australia & New Zealand through the Optus D2 Satellite via UBI World TV, MRT2 Sat was introduced in 2012 and broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme in Albanian language. The framework of the Macedonian Radio consists of three channels, a satellite channel and a non-profit regional channel. It broadcasts 86.5 hours of daily on its national. The First channel, Radio Skopje, broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme and it mainly functions as a talk radio. The Second channel, Radio 2, broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme and it is focused on popular music and entertainment. Kanal 103 provides FM broadcasting only for the region of Skopje with the mission of promoting avantgarde music, Macedonian Radio also broadcasts its programme over the Internet. The work of Macedonian Radio began on 27 January 1941, under the name of Radio Skoplje and this date is celebrated as MRT day. In 1993 Macedonian Radio and Television separated from the association of Yugoslav radio, in July 1993, MRT was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union. As a result of a dispute with Greece of the Macedonia name, MRT was admitted only under the acronym. With the enactment of new broadcasting law on 24 April 1997, Macedonian Radio, according to article 77 of the broadcasting law, 61% of the collected broadcasting tax belongs to Macedonian Radio Television
Macedonian Radio-Television
–
Macedonian Radio-Television building in Skopje
Macedonian Radio-Television
–
Macedonian Radio Television Македонска Радио Телевизиjа
11.
RTCG
–
Radio and Television of Montenegro is the public service broadcaster of Montenegro. A state-owned company with its headquarters in Podgorica, it is made up of Radio Montenegro and Montenegro Television, in July 2001, RTCG became a joint member of the European Broadcasting Union, and became a full member of the EBU upon the declaration of Montenegrin independence in 2006. Radio Cetinje commenced broadcasts on 27 November 1944 and in 1949, in 1990 it changed its name to Radio Crna Gora. In 1957, the first TV antenna was placed on Mount Lovćen and it was able to receive pictures from Italy. RTV Titograd was established in 1963 to produce original television programmes, the first broadcast by TVCG in Belgrade was a news program in 1964. Since October 2002, RTCG has been a member of the EGTA, RTCG is managed by a Council of 9 members, who are experts proposed by civil society organisations and appointed by the Parliament by simple majority. The RTCG Council appoints the Director General of the RTCG and advocates in the public interest, RTCG is widely seen as dependent from the Government, particularly after allegedly politically motivated dismissals of journalists in 2011. RTCG does not pay a licence fee and is financed directly from the State budget as well as from advertising revenues and sales reevenues. Its finances have been in trouble lately, and it edged bankruptcy in 2012, rTCGs financial viability is often at risk and relies heavily on the government as its primary source of funding. RTCGs debt stock was covered by the budget in 2014. RTCG has three TV Channels, two Terrestrial, one International, it also has a radio station, TV TVCG1 - News and domestic production. TVCG Sat - RTCG International Channel via satellite
RTCG
–
Radio i Televizija Crne Gore
12.
SR Serbia
–
The Socialist Republic of Serbia was one of the six constitutional republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was the largest republic in terms of population and territory and its capital, Belgrade, was also the federal capital of Yugoslavia. From 1945 to 1963, the republic was known as Peoples Republic of Serbia. The republic had two provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, for most of its existence in the SFRY, Serbia was loyal and generally subordinate to the federal government. This changed after the death of Josip Broz Tito in 1980, the League of Communists was split on how to respond. In 1989, Milošević was elected as President of the republic and he demanded that the federal Yugoslav government act for the interests of Serbia in Kosovo by sending in the Yugoslav Peoples Army to take control of the province. Serbia opposed such action and demanded a one-member, one-vote system in the Yugoslav League of Communists, ethnic tensions increased and the League of Communists of Yugoslavia collapsed, followed by the fall of the government of Yugoslavia by 1991. After 1990, the state was simply as Republic of Serbia. In 1992, when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was formed, in 2003 this state union was re-formed into Serbia and Montenegro, and in 2006 Serbia became an independent state. Within Socialist Republic of Serbia two autonomous provinces existed, Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, the central part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia located outside of the two autonomous provinces was generally known as Serbia proper. Geographically SR Serbia bordered Hungary to the north, Romania and Bulgaria to the east, within Yugoslavia it bordered SR Macedonia to the south and SR Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia to the west. Afterwards, the Serbian League of Communists selected Milosevic as its leader, Milosevic took a hard stand on Albanian nationalism in Kosovo and pressured the Yugoslav government to give him emergency powers to deal with Kosovo separatists. Furthermore, he reduced the autonomy of the provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. The tactic failed and Slovenia, along with its ally Croatia and this caused the Yugoslav Communist party to fall apart, and then the state of Yugoslavia itself one year later
SR Serbia
–
Flag
13.
Radio Television of Serbia
–
Radio Television of Serbia is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television, RTS is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. Radio Television of Serbia has four organizational units - radio, television, music production and it is financed primarily through monthly subscription fees and advertising revenue. Radio Belgrade began its broadcasts in 1929, the first news announcer in 1929 was Jelena Bilbija. The first radio program in Serbia was broadcast in February 1924, after five years, on March 24,1929 Radio Belgrade began with regular broadcasting of its program from the building of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The Second World War interrupted the broadcasting of the radio program in Belgrade. During the war, there was a German radio station, which broadcast programs in Serbian language, the emergence of the current Radio Belgrade followed the liberation from the Nazis on November 10,1944. This came after the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavias government decision of 1956 to invest in a television network. The first televised broadcast was on 23 August 1958, an edition of the Dnevnik news programme with Miloje Orlović, Branislav Surutka, Olga Nađ, Olivera Živković, the first RTB program was broadcast from the Belgrade Fair and from a new TV Studio build there. From 1961, RTS began to use video tape recording equipment. The Sixties saw dramatic development in all genres of TV programs, TVB became famous by its sitcoms (directed and written by Radivoje-Lola Djukić, Novak Novak and others. Also, TVB had excellent documentary programs and quizzes, by 1970, the entire territory of Serbia was covered by the RTS signal. On 31 December 1971, TVB started broadcasting in PAL color system on its second network, a new AM broadcast equipment in Zvečka, Obrenovac, with 2000 kW transmitter was erected in 1976. After the political turmoil in the 1970s the program of RTB became more sterile, however, in 1989, preparation for the formation of the RTS system officially began. That same year, 3K TVB started broadcasting as the youth, along with it, Radio 101 started broadcasting in Belgrade and Vojvodina. Radio 101 was the more commercial radio, carrying pop. It was intended to complement the more alternative Belgrade 202, in 1990, a few regional studios officially started broadcasting regional programming via a window in place of Beogradska hronika. In 1991, all public broadcasters started their merger into RTS, the establishment of Slobodan Miloševićs regime led to one of RTBs most troubled eras in its history
Radio Television of Serbia
–
RTS headquarters damaged after NATO bombing
14.
Radiotelevizija Slovenija
–
Radiotelevizija Slovenija – usually abbreviated to RTV Slovenija – is Slovenias national public broadcasting organization. Based in the capital, Ljubljana, it has regional broadcasting centres in Koper and Maribor and correspondents around Slovenia, Europe. RTV Slovenijas national radio services operate under the name Radio Slovenija, the names are sometimes Anglicized as Radio Slovenia and TV Slovenia, respectively. There are three national and four regional services, which can all be heard online as well. RTV Slovenija also finances the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra and the RTV Slovenia Big Band, the legal foundation for the institution is the Radiotelevizija Slovenija Act. It is the only public nonprofit broadcasting organization in Slovenia to operate both radio and television stations, approximately 73% of RTV Slovenijas funding comes from television licence fees. Radio Ljubljana signed on the air for the first time on September 1,1928, by October 28 the radio station already had a scheduled programme. On April 11,1941, the transmitter in Domžale was destroyed. On April 1,1949, the first TV laboratory was established in Ljubljana, however, the task of setting up a television service was eventually assigned to Radio Ljubljana. Second radio program started in 1951, on November 11,1958 the TV channel got a regular schedule, but it was shared by other Yugoslav republics, with TV Ljubljana getting around 30% of airtime. TV Ljubljana produced its first broadcast for Eurovision, showing ski jumping in Planica, the color program broadcasting started in 1966. During that decade, the amount of programming produced exclusively for Slovenian audiences increased substantially, on April 15,1968, the main evening newscast was broadcast in the Slovenian language for the first time. It had previously originated in Belgrade and was produced in Serbo-Croatian, in 1970, the RTV Slovenia record label was established. In 1971, TV Koper/Capodistria, a subsidiary of RTV Ljubljana, was launched as the first bilingual TV station in Slovenia, however, it enjoyed huge popularity in many parts of Italy. There, RAI still had a monopoly on television, so many Italians eagerly tuned into the new Yugoslav station, private companies built transmitters and translators in various parts of Italy that made TV Koper-Capodistria available to millions of Italians. Because the station used the PAL color standard, Italians bought PAL TV sets in large numbers, with the advent of privately owned, purely commercial television in Italy, the stations popularity eventually began to diminish. During the 1970s, TV Ljubljanas main service was gradually converted to color. In 1984, teletext was introduced, whereas the digitalization started in 1986, in 1989, Radio Ljubljana started transmitting an RDS signal
Radiotelevizija Slovenija
–
Radiotelevizija Slovenija
15.
Autonomous area
–
An autonomous administrative division is a subdivision or dependent territory of a country that has a degree of self-governance, or autonomy, from an external authority. Typically, it is geographically distinct from the rest of the country or populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas may be federacies, federations, or confederations, Autonomous areas can be divided into territorial autonomies, subregional territorial autonomies, and local autonomies. Gibraltar is an overseas territory of the UK. A number of other British Overseas Territories also have autonomy in internal affairs through local legislatures, New Zealand dependent territories New Zealand maintains nominal sovereignty over three Pacific Island nations. The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing countries in association with New Zealand that maintain some international relationships in their own name. Tokelau remains an autonomous dependency of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands—despite having the designation of Territory—is an integral part of the country, situated within the New Zealand archipelago. The territorys council is not autonomous and has broadly the same powers as other local councils, danish constituent countries The Faroe Islands and Greenland are two autonomous countries within the Kingdom of Denmark. Dutch constituent countries Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten are autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in addition they enjoy autonomy in taxation matters as well as having their own currencies. French overseas collectivities, New Caledonia, and Corsica The French constitution recognises 3 autonomous jurisdictions, Corsica, a region of France, enjoys a greater degree of autonomy on matters such as tax and education compared to mainland regions. New Caledonia, a sui generis collectivity, and French Polynesia and they do not, however, have legislative powers for policy areas relating to law and order, defense, border control or university education. Other smaller overseas collectivities have a degree of autonomy through local legislatures. In Ethiopia, special woredas are a subgroup of woredas that are organized around the traditional homelands of an ethnic minority and these woredas have many similarities to autonomous areas in other countries. The five comarcas indígenas of Panama, Autonomous Silesian Voivodeship Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus in Albania. Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa, subcarpathian Ruthenia and Slovakia within Czechoslovakia. Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire, grand Duchy of Finland of the Russian Empire. Magyar Autonomous Region of Socialist Republic of Romania Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain, weller and S. Wolff, Autonomy, Self-governance and Conflict Resolution, Innovative Approaches to Institutional Design in Divided Societies. Abingdon, Routledge,2005 From Conflict to Autonomy in Nicaragua, Lessons Learnt, olausson, Autonomy and Islands, A Global Study of the Factors that determine Island Autonomy
Autonomous area
–
Sovereign nations with at least one area labelled "autonomous" or defined as such by law
16.
SAP Vojvodina
–
Until 1963 the province was named Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, and had a lower level of autonomy. The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina was formed in 1944 and it was an autonomous province of Serbia, within the larger Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1963, when it was transformed into the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The province was formed in October 1944 when Soviet Red Army, in this time, the final political status of the province was not yet determined and the newly formed provincial administration functioned independently from Serbia. The temporary borders of Vojvodina included the regions of Banat, Bačka and Baranja, the de jure temporary border between Vojvodina and Croatia in Syrmia was Vukovar-Vinkovci-Županja line. De facto, western parts of Syrmia remained under Axis military control until April 1945, from October 17,1944 to January 27,1945, most of the province was under military administration. In July 30–31,1945, the assembly of Vojvodina decided that the province should join Serbia. This decision was confirmed in the third AVNOJ assembly in August 10,1945, a small part of northern Mačva near Sremska Mitrovica was assigned to Vojvodina. The capital city of the province was Novi Sad, which was also the capital of the former Danube Banovina province that existed before World War II, since 1945, Vojvodina enjoyed a limited level of autonomy within Serbia. In 1963, the name of the province was changed to the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina that was created in 1944 enjoyed only the small level of autonomy within Serbia since 1945. In 1963, the name of the province was changed to Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, under the rule of the Serbian president Slobodan Milošević, Vojvodina and Kosovo lost most of their autonomy on 28 September 1990. After this, the Vojvodina was no longer a subject of the Yugoslav federation, the name of the province was also reverted to Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The Constitution of the Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina was the higher juridical act of the province, dimitrije Boarov, Politička istorija Vojvodine, Novi Sad,2001. Stefan Grubač, Srbija – severno krilo, Novi Sad,1990, autonomija Vojvodine – izabrani spisi, Politička teorija i praksa – knjiga 4, Centar PK SKV za političke studije i marksističko obrazovanje, Novi Sad,1976. Vojvodina History of Vojvodina Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Socialist Republic of Serbia Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo 1944-1945 killings in Vojvodina
SAP Vojvodina
–
Flag
17.
Radio Television of Vojvodina
–
Radio Television of Vojvodina is the regional public broadcaster in the Serbian province of Vojvodina. Its headquarters is in Novi Sad, formerly, it was known as Radio Television Novi Sad. In 1992 Radio Television Novi Sad, together with Radio Television Belgrade and Radio Television Priština, in 1999, the buildings of the RTNS in the Mišeluk neighborhood of Novi Sad were bombed and destroyed by the NATO airforce. After the war, the RTNS was moved to the new building in the city centre, Radio Television of Vojvodina broadcasts programme in 7 languages, Serbian, Hungarian, Croatian, Slovak, Rusyn, Romanian and Romany. Certain TV shows are also translated into Sign language, since autumn 2011, programmes and news in the German language have been broadcast as well. Radio television of Vojvodina 2, in Serbian and minority languages
Radio Television of Vojvodina
–
Radio Television of Vojvodina Радио Телевизија Војводине Radio Televizija Vojvodine Vajdasági rádió és televízió Radio Televizia Vojvodiny Radioteleviziunea Voevodina Радіо Телебачення Воєводини
Radio Television of Vojvodina
–
Radio Novi Sad building in Stari Grad
Radio Television of Vojvodina
–
TVNS - Radio Television of Vojvodina headquarters in Mišeluk, before and after NATO bombing in 1999
Radio Television of Vojvodina
–
Old Radio Television of Vojvodina headquarters in Mišeluk today
18.
Breakup of SFR Yugoslavia
–
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, in addition, two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Each of the republics had its own branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia party and a ruling elite, after his death in 1980, the weakened system of federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political challenges. In the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians started to demand that their autonomous province be granted the status of a constituent republic, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved in 1990 along federal lines. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated, in 1991, one republic after another proclaimed independence, but the status of Serb minorities outside Serbia was left unsolved. Before World War II, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavias multi-ethnic make-up and relative political, fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state. The Croats and Slovenes envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater autonomy than they had as a crown land under Austria-Hungary. Under Austria-Hungary, both Slovenes and Croats enjoyed autonomy with free hands only in education, law, religion, and 45% of taxes. The Serbs tended to view the territories as a just reward for their support of the allies in World War I, the assassination and human rights abuses were subject of concern for the Human Rights League and precipitated voices of protest from intellectuals, including Albert Einstein. It was in this environment of oppression that the insurgent group. During World War II, the tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces which established a Croat puppet state spanning much of present-day Croatia and Bosnia. The Axis powers installed the Ustaše as the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaše resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column of Serbian expansionism, and pursued a policy of persecution against the Serbs. The policy dictated that one-third of the Serbian minority were to be killed, one-third expelled, both Croats and Muslims were recruited as soldiers by the SS. At the same time, former royalist, General Milan Nedić, was installed by the Axis as head of the government and local Serbs were recruited into the Gestapo. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II was 1,704,000, subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million. Of that number,330,000 to 390,000 ethnic Serbs perished from all causes in Croatia and Bosnia, Yugoslavia was in its heyday a regional industrial power and an economic success. From 1960 to 1980, annual gross domestic product growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, literacy was 91 percent, Yugoslavia was a unique state, straddling both the East and West
Breakup of SFR Yugoslavia
–
Serbian President Slobodan Milošević 's unequivocal desire to uphold the unity of Serbs, a status threatened by each republic breaking away from the federation, in addition to his opposition to the Albanian authorities in Kosovo, further inflamed ethnic tensions.
Breakup of SFR Yugoslavia
Breakup of SFR Yugoslavia
–
Croatian President Franjo Tuđman
Breakup of SFR Yugoslavia
–
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović
19.
Croatia
–
Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a sovereign state between Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Its capital city is Zagreb, which one of the countrys primary subdivisions. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres and has diverse, mostly continental, Croatias Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The countrys population is 4.28 million, most of whom are Croats, the Croats arrived in the area of present-day Croatia during the early part of the 7th century AD. They organised the state into two duchies by the 9th century, tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Petar Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary, a fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991 Croatia declared independence, which came wholly into effect on 8 October of the same year, the Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration. A unitary state, Croatia is a republic governed under a parliamentary system, the International Monetary Fund classified Croatia as an emerging and developing economy, and the World Bank identified it as a high-income economy. Croatia is a member of the European Union, United Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO, the World Trade Organization, the service sector dominates Croatias economy, followed by the industrial sector and agriculture. Tourism is a significant source of revenue during the summer, with Croatia ranked the 18th most popular tourist destination in the world, the state controls a part of the economy, with substantial government expenditure. The European Union is Croatias most important trading partner, since 2000, the Croatian government constantly invests in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Internal sources produce a significant portion of energy in Croatia, the rest is imported, the origin of the name is uncertain, but is thought to be a Gothic or Indo-Aryan term assigned to a Slavic tribe. The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym *xъrvatъ is of variable stem, the first attestation of the Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir from the year 852. The original is lost, and just a 1568 copy is preserved—leading to doubts over the authenticity of the claim, the oldest preserved stone inscription is the 9th-century Branimir Inscription, where Duke Branimir is styled as Dux Cruatorvm. The inscription is not believed to be dated accurately, but is likely to be from during the period of 879–892, the area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period
Croatia
–
Branimir Inscription
Croatia
–
Flag
Croatia
–
Tanais Tablet B, name Khoroáthos highlighted
Croatia
–
The walls of Dubrovnik helped to defend the city since Middle Ages until the 1991–1992 siege.
20.
Independence
–
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over the territory. The opposite of independence is a dependent territory, Independence does not necessarily mean freedom. Whether the attainment of independence is different from revolution has long been contested, nation-states have been granted independence without any revolutionary acts. The Russian October Revolution, for example, was not intended to seek national independence, however, the American Revolutionary War was intended to achieve independence from the beginning. Causes for a country or province wishing to seek independence are many, the means can extend from peaceful demonstrations, like in the case of the Indian independence movement, to a violent civil war. Autonomy refers to a kind of independence which has been granted by an authority that itself still retains ultimate authority over that territory. A protectorate refers to a region that depends upon a larger government for its protection as an autonomous region. Declaring independence and attaining it however, are quite different, a well-known successful example is the U. S. Declaration of Independence issued in 1776, the dates of established independence, are typically celebrated as a national holiday known as an independence day
Independence
–
John Trumbull 's Declaration of Independence in 1776
21.
Former Yugoslav
–
Covering an area of 255,804 km², the SFRY was bordered with Italy to the west, Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east and Albania and Greece to the south. In addition, it included two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina, the SFRY traces back to 29 June 1943 when the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was formed during World War II. On 29 November 1945, the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed after the deposal of King Peter II thus ending the monarchy. Following the death of Tito on 4 May 1980, rising ethnic nationalism in the late 1980s led to dissidence among the multiple ethnicities within the constituent republics. This led to the federation collapsing along the borders, followed by the final downfall and breakup of the federation on 27 April 1992. The term former Yugoslavia is now commonly used retrospectively, the name Yugoslavia, an Anglicised transcription of Jugoslavija, is a composite word made-up of jug and slavija. The Serbo-Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian word jug means south, while slavija denotes a land of the Slavs, thus, a translation of Jugoslavija would be South-Slavia or Land of the South Slavs. The term is intended to denote the lands occupied by the six South Slavic nations, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Slovenes, the full official name of the federation varied significantly between 1945 and 1992. Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, the name deliberately left the republic-or-kingdom question open. In 1963, amid pervasive liberal constitutional reforms, the name Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was introduced, the state is most commonly referred to by the latter name, which it held for the longest period of all. The most common abbreviation is SFRY, though SFR Yugoslavia was also used in an official capacity, particularly by the media. On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany, by 17 April 1941, Yugoslav resistance was soon established in two forms, the Royal Yugoslav Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The Partisan supreme commander was Josip Broz Tito, and under his command the movement soon began establishing liberated territories which attracted the attentions of the occupying forces. The coalition of parties, factions, and prominent individuals behind the movement was the Peoples Liberation Front. The Front formed a political body, the Anti-Fascist Council for the Peoples Liberation of Yugoslavia. The AVNOJ, which met for the first time in Partisan-liberated Bihać on 26 November 1942, during 1943, the Yugoslav Partisans began attracting serious attention from the Germans. In two major operations of Fall Weiss and Fall Schwartz, the Axis attempted to stamp-out the Yugoslav resistance once, on both occasions, despite heavy casualties, the Group succeeded in evading the trap and retreating to safety. The Partisans emerged stronger than before and now occupied a significant portion of Yugoslavia
Former Yugoslav
–
U.S.-Yugoslavia summit, 1978
Former Yugoslav
–
Flag
Former Yugoslav
–
The parliament building of Bosnia and Herzegovina burns amid the Yugoslav wars.
Former Yugoslav
–
Vukovar water tower during the Siege of Vukovar. The tower came to symbolize the town's resistance to Serb forces.
22.
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
–
The Republic of Montenegro was a constituent country of Serbia and Montenegro between 1992 and 2006. The declaration of independence of Montenegro in 2006 ended the union with Serbia. This fostered the collapse of the Communist party and later the SFRY, however Bulatovics brief endorsement of Montenegrin independence ended due to pressure from Serbia. In 1992, Montenegro joined the FRY after a referendum took place on March 1 of that year, in the same year, the capital Titograd was renamed to its pre-communist name of Podgorica. This flag would be in place until 2004, also Montenegro had access to the sea which kept Serbias sovereign body from being landlocked and allowed for a navy to exist. Strain with Serbia over economic policy caused Montenegro to adopt the Deutsche Mark in 1996, after Bulatović stepped down as Montenegrin president in 1998, the new president Milo Đukanović opposed Milošević and set Montenegro on a course to independence. These demands helped bring about the end of the FRY and created the looser State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2003, which stood until Montenegro separated from it in 2006
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
–
Momir Bulatović, President of Montenegro 1990–1998.
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
–
Flag
Republic of Montenegro (federal)
–
Milo Đukanović (right), President of Montenegro 1998–2002, talks to William Cohen in the Pentagon, 4 November 1999.
23.
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
Serbia and Montenegro, officially the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, was a country in Southeast Europe, created from the two remaining republics of Yugoslavia after its breakup in 1992. The republics of Serbia and Montenegro together established a federation in 1992 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the FRY aspired to be a sole legal successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but those claims were opposed by other former republics. The United Nations also denied its request to continue the membership of the former state. It re-applied for UN membership on 27 October and was admitted on 1 November 2000, the FRY was initially dominated by Slobodan Milošević as President of Serbia and then President of Yugoslavia. Milošević installed and forced the removal of several presidents and prime ministers. However, the Montenegrin government, initially enthusiastic supporters of Milošević, a loose union, Serbia and Montenegro were united only in certain realms, such as defense. The two constituent republics functioned separately throughout the period of the Federal Republic, and continued to operate under separate economic policies, on 21 May 2006, the Montenegrin independence referendum was held, and 55. 5% of voters voted in favor of independence. The state union came to an end after Montenegros formal declaration of independence on 3 June 2006, after the dissolution, Serbia became the legal successor of the union, while Montenegro re-applied for membership in international organizations. With the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe, the new state followed the wave of democratic change, Yugoslavias collapse began in 1991 when Slovenia, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia declared independence. On 26 December 1991, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serb rebel-held territories in Croatia agreed that they would form a new third Yugoslavia. Zulfikarpašić believed that Bosnia could benefit from a union with Serbia, Montenegro, the FRY was suspended from a number of international institutions. This was due to the ongoing Yugoslav wars during the 1990s, the Government of Yugoslavia supported Croatian and Bosnian Serbs in the wars from 1992 to 1995. Because of that, the country was under economic and political sanctions, in this way, every Bosnian Serb was transferred from the Yugoslav army to what became the newly created Bosnian Serb Army. Through this, the Bosnian Serb army also received military equipment and full funding from the FRY. Furthermore, Serbian Radical Party founder and paramilitary Vojislav Šešelj claimed that President Milošević personally asked him to send paramilitaries into Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1995, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević represented the FRY and Bosnian Serbs at peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, US, from 1996, the first public signs of political discord between parts of Montenegrin leadership and the Serbian leadership began to appear. Milošević did not respond to the platform, considering it unconstitutional, by October 2000 Milošević had lost power in Serbia. Subsequent governments of Montenegro carried out policies, and political tensions with Serbia simmered despite political changes in Belgrade
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
The Zašto? ("Why?") Monument, dedicated to the employees of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) who were killed during NATO bombing of the RTS building in 1999.
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
Flag
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
–
A Federal Republic of Yugoslavia passport
24.
Croatian War of Independence
–
In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the Homeland War and also as the Greater-Serbian Aggression. In Serbian sources, War in Croatia and War in Krajina are used, Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991. The JNA initially tried to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia by occupying all of Croatia, after this failed, Serb forces established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina within Croatia. During that time, the RSK encompassed 13,913 square kilometers, in 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash and Operation Storm, which would effectively end the war in its favor. The remaining United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, the war ended with Croatian victory, as it achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war, independence and preservation of its borders. 21–25% of Croatias economy was ruined, with an estimated US$37 billion in damaged infrastructure, lost output, a total of 20,000 people were killed in the war, and refugees were displaced on both sides. The Serb and Croatian governments began to cooperate with each other but tension remains, in part due to verdicts by the ICTY. Between 2008 and 2012, the ICTY had prosecuted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markač, Čermak was acquitted outright, and the convictions of Gotovina and Markač were later overturned by an ICTY Appeals Panel. The International Court of Justice dismissed Croatia and Serbia genocide claims in 2015, the Court reaffirmed that serious crimes against civilians had taken place, but ruled that specific genocidal intent was not present. From 1967 to 1972 in Croatia and 1968 and 1981 protests in Kosovo, nationalist doctrines, the suppression by the state of nationalists is believed to have had the effect of identifying nationalism as the primary alternative to communism itself and made it a strong underground movement. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe towards the end of the Cold War, in Yugoslavia, the national communist party, officially called the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, had lost its ideological potency. SR Slovenia and SR Croatia wanted to move towards decentralization, the rhetoric was approved by the Serbian political leadership, and accused the Croatian leadership of being blindly nationalistic when it objected. In 1989, political parties were allowed and a number of them had been founded, including the Croatian Democratic Union, led by Franjo Tuđman, who later became the first president of Croatia. In January 1990, the League of Communists broke up on ethnic lines, with the Croatian, at the congress, Serbian delegates accused the Croatian and Slovene delegates of supporting separatism, terrorism and genocide in Kosovo. The Croatian and Slovene delegations, including most of their ethnic Serb members, eventually left in protest, January 1990 also marked the beginning of court cases being brought to Yugoslavias Constitutional Court on the matter of secession. The first was the Slovenian Constitutional Amendments case after Slovenia claimed the right to unilateral secession pursuant to the right of self-determination, the Constitutional Court ruled that secession from the federation was only permitted if there was the unanimous agreement of Yugoslavias republics and autonomous provinces. On 4 March 1990,50,000 Serbs rallied at Petrova Gora, and shouted negative remarks aimed at Tuđman, chanted This is Serbia, the first free elections in Croatia and Slovenia were scheduled for a few months later. The first round of elections in Croatia were held on 22 April, the HDZ based its campaign on greater sovereignty for Croatia, fueling a sentiment among Croats that only the HDZ could protect Croatia from the aspirations of Milošević towards a Greater Serbia
Croatian War of Independence
–
Clockwise from top left: the central street of Dubrovnik, the Stradun, in ruins during the Siege of Dubrovnik; the damaged Vukovar water tower, a symbol of the early conflict, flying the Croatian tricolour; soldiers of the Croatian Army preparing to destroy a Serbian tank; the Vukovar Memorial Cemetery; a Serbian T-55 tank destroyed on the road to Drniš
Croatian War of Independence
–
President Franjo Tuđman wanted Croatia to disengage from Yugoslavia.
Croatian War of Independence
–
Map of the strategic offensive plan of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) in 1991 as interpreted by the US Central Intelligence Agency
Croatian War of Independence
–
The Croatian military eased their equipment shortage by seizing the JNA barracks in the Battle of the Barracks.
25.
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
–
The breakup of Yugoslavia occurred as a result of a series of political upheavals and conflicts during the early 1990s. After a period of crisis in the 1980s, constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia split apart. The wars primarily affected Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, in addition, two autonomous provinces were established within Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Each of the republics had its own branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia party and a ruling elite, after his death in 1980, the weakened system of federal government was left unable to cope with rising economic and political challenges. In the 1980s, Kosovo Albanians started to demand that their autonomous province be granted the status of a constituent republic, the League of Communists of Yugoslavia dissolved in 1990 along federal lines. Nationalist rhetoric on all sides became increasingly heated, in 1991, one republic after another proclaimed independence, but the status of Serb minorities outside Serbia was left unsolved. Before World War II, major tensions arose from the first, monarchist Yugoslavias multi-ethnic make-up and relative political, fundamental to the tensions were the different concepts of the new state. The Croats and Slovenes envisaged a federal model where they would enjoy greater autonomy than they had as a crown land under Austria-Hungary. Under Austria-Hungary, both Slovenes and Croats enjoyed autonomy with free hands only in education, law, religion, and 45% of taxes. The Serbs tended to view the territories as a just reward for their support of the allies in World War I, the assassination and human rights abuses were subject of concern for the Human Rights League and precipitated voices of protest from intellectuals, including Albert Einstein. It was in this environment of oppression that the insurgent group. During World War II, the tensions were exploited by the occupying Axis forces which established a Croat puppet state spanning much of present-day Croatia and Bosnia. The Axis powers installed the Ustaše as the leaders of the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaše resolved that the Serbian minority were a fifth column of Serbian expansionism, and pursued a policy of persecution against the Serbs. The policy dictated that one-third of the Serbian minority were to be killed, one-third expelled, both Croats and Muslims were recruited as soldiers by the SS. At the same time, former royalist, General Milan Nedić, was installed by the Axis as head of the government and local Serbs were recruited into the Gestapo. The official Yugoslav post-war estimate of victims in Yugoslavia during World War II was 1,704,000, subsequent data gathering in the 1980s by historians Vladimir Žerjavić and Bogoljub Kočović showed that the actual number of dead was about 1 million. Of that number,330,000 to 390,000 ethnic Serbs perished from all causes in Croatia and Bosnia, Yugoslavia was in its heyday a regional industrial power and an economic success. From 1960 to 1980, annual gross domestic product growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, literacy was 91 percent, Yugoslavia was a unique state, straddling both the East and West
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
–
Serbian President Slobodan Milošević 's unequivocal desire to uphold the unity of Serbs, a status threatened by each republic breaking away from the federation, in addition to his opposition to the Albanian authorities in Kosovo, further inflamed ethnic tensions.
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
–
Croatian President Franjo Tuđman
Dissolution of Yugoslavia
–
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović
26.
Croatian Radio-Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision is a Croatian public broadcasting company. It operates several radio and television channels, over a domestic transmitter network as well as satellite, Croatian Radiotelevision has three organizational units, three sister companies - the Croatian Radio, the Croatian Television and Music Production. Croatian Radiotelevision is the successor of the Radio station Zagreb that started broadcasting on 15 May 1926 under its first director and co-founder. During the first 14 years of its existence the Zagreb Radio station was owned by a private corporation, Radio Zagreb was nationalized on 1 May 1940. During the Independent State of Croatia, the station was known as Hrvatski krugoval, after World War II it began to operate as a state-owned radio station. Zagreb Radio station was the first public broadcasting facility in the southeast European area, at the end of the first year of operation, Radio Zagreb company had a little over four thousand subscribers. On the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Zagreb Radio station, on 15 May 1956, for the next two years this was the only TV broadcasting service in the southeast European area. This was the first TV station in Yugoslavia and would become a color station in 1972. In June 1990, the Croatian Parliament renamed the company from Radiotelevizija Zagreb to Hrvatska radiotelevizija, on 1 January 1993, HRT was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union. The television channels were aired under the name Croatian Television, Hrvatska televizija between 1990 and 1993, since then, the current name is used. The radio broadcast unit is referred to as Croatian Radio, Hrvatski radio, HRT1 - HRTs first TV channel, previously known as TVZ1. This is a generalist channel with daily news around the world, documentaries, HRT2 - HRTs second channel, previously known as TVZ2. It is primarily used for broadcasts and entertainment programmes. The channel is known for its footage of vintage films. HRT3 - HRTs third channel, primarily used for culture, films and it was popular during the late 90s, and taken off-air in 2004. It returned to air in September 2012, HRT4 - HRTs fourth channel, broadcasting news programmes, started airing in December 2012. In the 1980s there was a channel called Z3 and later HTV Z3. It was taken off air on 16 September 1991 when its main transmitter, on 7 November 1994 the channel came back on air, this time called HRT3
Croatian Radio-Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision Hrvatska radiotelevizija
Croatian Radio-Television
–
Croatian Radiotelevision headquarters at Prisavlje, Zagreb
Croatian Radio-Television
–
Dnevnik is one of HRT's popular news-programs.
Croatian Radio-Television
–
HRT's outside broadcasting truck
27.
Macedonian Radio Television
–
Macedonian Radio Television is the public broadcasting organization of the Republic of Macedonia. It was founded in 1993 by the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia, MRT is directed by Petar Karanakov. An industry outsider, Karanakov was selected for his independent politics and strong reputation for integrity, Macedonian Television broadcasts 73 hours of programmes daily on its three national terrestrial and two international satellite channels. Terrestrial MRT1 broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme, MRT1 HD simulcasts the programme of MRT1 in HD quality. MRT2 broadcasts programmes for the minorities in the Republic of Macedonia. Albanian, Turkish, as well as programmes in Serbian, Romany, Vlach, MRT2 HD simulcasts the programme of MRT2 in HD quality. MRT3 will broadcast a new category of programmes yet to be announced, MRT Sobraniski Kanal was formed in 1991 as an experimental channel, but now it broadcasts the activities from the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia. MRT Sobraniski Kanal HD simulcasts the programme of MRT Sobraniski Kanal in HD quality, Satellite MRT Sat started in 2000 and broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme, which are a selection of programmes from MRT, as well as its original programme of 5 hours. The station also broadcasts to Australia & New Zealand through the Optus D2 Satellite via UBI World TV, MRT2 Sat was introduced in 2012 and broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme in Albanian language. The framework of the Macedonian Radio consists of three channels, a satellite channel and a non-profit regional channel. It broadcasts 86.5 hours of daily on its national. The First channel, Radio Skopje, broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme and it mainly functions as a talk radio. The Second channel, Radio 2, broadcasts a continuous 24-hour programme and it is focused on popular music and entertainment. Kanal 103 provides FM broadcasting only for the region of Skopje with the mission of promoting avantgarde music, Macedonian Radio also broadcasts its programme over the Internet. The work of Macedonian Radio began on 27 January 1941, under the name of Radio Skoplje and this date is celebrated as MRT day. In 1993 Macedonian Radio and Television separated from the association of Yugoslav radio, in July 1993, MRT was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union. As a result of a dispute with Greece of the Macedonia name, MRT was admitted only under the acronym. With the enactment of new broadcasting law on 24 April 1997, Macedonian Radio, according to article 77 of the broadcasting law, 61% of the collected broadcasting tax belongs to Macedonian Radio Television
Macedonian Radio Television
–
Macedonian Radio-Television building in Skopje
28.
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Montenegro debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007. Previously it participated as part of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro, the 2005 entrants from Serbia and Montenegro, No Name, were from Montenegro, as were the 1983 and 1984 entrants for Yugoslavia. Since Montenegro became an independent state on 21 May 2006, the nation has taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest, the country made its solo debut in the 2007 contest and so far has managed mediocre results with qualifying twice for the grand final. It contributed for some good results for Ex-Yugoslavia and Serbia. 2009 saw the third best result to date finishing 11th place in the first semi-final. In November 2009 RTCG announced that Montenegro would withdraw from the 2010 contest, RTCG submitted an application for the 2011 contest, which was held in Düsseldorf, Germany. For the next years after 2007, Montenegro have been starting the first semi-final for three years in a row until 2013 when they were allocated to the half of the first semi-final. In 2014, Montenegro qualified for the Grand Final for the first time in its history with Sergej Ćetkovićs Moj svijet, in 2015, Montenegro qualified for the Grand Final for the second time with Knez who performed song Adio, composed by Zeljko Joksimovic. Song Adio has two versions, on English and French language, Knez managed their best result ever, finishing in the 13th place. ^ Contains some phrases in Montenegrin and German, as of 20163, Montenegros voting history is as follows,3. Montenegro in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Serbia and Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest Points to and from Montenegro eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Stevan Faddy at Helsinki (2007)
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Stefan Filipović at Belgrade (2008)
Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Rambo Amadeus at Baku (2012)
29.
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th Eurovision Song Contest and it was held in the Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey. This was the first occasion in which the contest was held in Turkey after they had won the competition in 2003 with Sertab Erener singing Everyway That I Can, the hosting national broadcaster of the contest was Turkish Radio and Television Corporation. Ukrainian singer Ruslana won the contest with Wild Dances and it is notable that this was only Ukraines second participation in the contest. This was also the year in a row in which the contest was won by a woman. To accommodate the number of countries who wished to participate. The countries which didnt qualify for the final are normally calculate like participating countries, the contest was held in Istanbul following Turkeys victory in the 2003 contest in Riga, Latvia with Sertab Ereners Everyway That I Can. Originally the Mydonose Showland was chosen by TRT to host the event, korhan Abay and Meltem Cumbul were presenters of the show. In the semi-final and the final, Meltem Cumbul warmed up the audience with a sing-a-long of Eurovision classic Nel blu dipinto di blu, originally by Domenico Modugno. Sertab Erener returned to the stage in the final to perform Everyway That I Can, the 2003 winning song, Sertab also interviewed contestants in the green room. The Turkish dance ensemble Fire of Anatolia performed as the interval act, an official CD was released and, for the first time, the entire contest was released on DVD which included the Semi-Final and the Grand Final. The contests new official logo was used for the first time this year. The slogan for Istanbuls contest was Under The Same Sky, which communicated the importance of a united Europe and this year was also notable as it was the first year that Turkey voted for Cyprus and the second year in a row that Cyprus voted for Turkey. Nevertheless, in a move that angered some Cypriots, when the country presented its votes no map of the island was shown and this was due to Turkeys recognition of the northern half of the island as an independent republic. It is likely Turkey pulled out of showing the map because it would have highlighted the southern portion of the island. This was also the first year that the scores were only re-read by the hosts in one language. Before 2004 every point was repeated in French and English, but due to 36 countries voting and this was in the opposite of the original country representative spoke in. Also, this year was the first time in which a non-winning entry scored over 200 points, prior to this contest, only Rock n Roll Kids and Love Shine a Light, the winners in 1994 and 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, all songs in the top 3 got over 200 points and this years Eurovision contest was the first to be a two-day event, with one qualifying round held on a Wednesday and the grand final held on the following Saturday
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
–
Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, the 2004 venue.
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
Eurovision Song Contest 2004
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Istanbul 2004
30.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2013 was the 58th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Malmö, Sweden, following Loreens win at the 2012 contest in Baku and it was the fifth time that Sweden had hosted the contest, the last time being in 2000. Sveriges Television chose Malmö Arena as the following the consideration of several venues in Sweden. The host for the contest was Petra Mede, thirty-nine countries participated, including Armenia, which was last represented in 2011. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Slovakia and Turkey announced their withdrawal from the 2013 Contest, compared to many of the previous contests in the history of Eurovision, rather than focusing on promoting its own country, Sweden chose to lay focus on the artists and their respective countries. The winner for 2013 was Denmark with the song Only Teardrops sung by Emmelie de Forest and this makes it the second time that Denmark won on Swedish soil. Ukraine finished in place and Norway in fourth, while Russia finished in fifth place. Out of the countries with the Big Five status, only Italy managed to finish in the top ten, third in a row since its return, coming seventh with 126 points, the Netherlands finished ninth in their first participation in a final since 2004. 170 million viewers watched the semifinals and final of the 2013 edition, for the first time since 1985, no country of the former Yugoslav federation participated in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. The concept sees all countries performing in the Grand Final present themselves with their flags before the contest begins. This year, the contestants entered the stage by walking across a bridge over the audience. The idea was continued the following years by Denmark and Austria, on 8 July 2012, the Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Television announced that Malmö Arena in Malmö would be the host venue for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. This was the time after 1975,1985,1992 and 2000 that the competition was held in Sweden and the second time, after 1992. This were factors in the choice of Malmö Arena as the host venue, and Malmö as Swedens third-largest city by population after Stockholm and Gothenburg, Øresund bridge was eventually also used as the main artistic medium for the theme of the contest, as an expression of binding cultures. One alternative put forward in the Expressen, was to hold the competition at three different venues – the semi-finals in Gothenburg and Malmö, and the final in Stockholm. This proposal was dismissed as unfeasible by SVT, which declared that the contest would be hosted in one city. On 20 June 2012, it was announced that Gothenburg had withdrawn from the process due to the city being the host of the Göteborg Horse Show in late April 2013. There were also concerns about the availability of hotel rooms due to a variety of events taking place in the same time frame as the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
–
Square in Malmö before the finals, with time table demonstrating the countdown for the broadcast.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
–
Malmö Arena, next to Hyllie Railway Station.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
–
The stage with its movable parts and the audience closely surrounding it during the opening act of the second semi-final
31.
Serbian language
–
Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the language of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a minority language in Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, the other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian. Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, Serbian is a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, of the South Slavic subgroup. Other standardized forms of Serbo-Croatian are Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin and it has lower intelligibility with the Eastern South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Macedonian, than with Slovene. The 2011 census show that 42. 88% still declare Serbian to be their native language, Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin script. Even in official government documents this constitutional requirement is rarely enforced, Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or another, for example, the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, predominantly uses the Cyrillic script whereas the privately run broadcasters, like RTV Pink, predominantly use the Latin script. A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one and these are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses, the first conditional and the second conditional, Serbian has active and passive voice. As for the verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive. Most Serbian words are of native Slavic lexical stock, tracing back to the Proto-Slavic language, there are many loanwords from different languages, reflecting cultural interaction throughout history. Notable loanwords were borrowed from Greek, Latin, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik in 1349. In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, however, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s
Serbian language
–
Serbian language as co-official minority language in municipalities in Croatia
Serbian language
–
Countries where Serbian is an official language.
32.
Eurovision Song Contest 1963
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1963 was the eighth annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest was held in London, United Kingdom, after the British broadcaster BBC stepped in to organise the event, france had won the 1962 edition with the right to host this following one but were unable to, due to financial shortcomings. The contest was won by Denmark with the song Dansevise, performed by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann, the host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes and it remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it closed in March 2013. Two studios were used, one for the mistress of ceremonies Katie Boyle, the audience, and the scoreboard, the other for the performers and the orchestra accompanying them. Unusually, a microphone was employed - the viewer doesnt see this. This was not the case, but this innovation was to create a new look for the contest, one controversy this year was during the voting. Katie Boyle asked Norway to repeat their results, but the Norwegian spokesman asked Katie to return to them all the other results were in. When Katie went back to Norway again the votes had mysteriously altered, thus changing the outcome of the contest, in fact, the Norwegian spokesman had not given the correct votes on the first occasion. Monaco was also asked to do their voting a second time as initially Monaco give one point to both the United Kingdom and Luxembourg, however, when Katie Boyle went back to Monaco to receive the votes again Monacos one vote to Luxembourg was efficiently discarded. The participating conductors were, This year saw the return of just one artist, each country had 20 jury members who awarded their five favourite songs 5,4,3,2, and 1 points in order. All those points would then be added up and the five song with the most points got 5,4,3,2, each national broadcaster also sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below. Media related to Eurovision Song Contest 1963 at Wikimedia Commons Official website
Eurovision Song Contest 1963
–
BBC Television Centre, London. Host venue of the 1963 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1963
33.
Eurovision Song Contest 1965
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1965 was the tenth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Naples, Italy, following the Italian victory at the previous 1964 edition. Luxembourg won, for the time in the history of the contest, with the song Poupée de cire, poupée de son, performed by France Gall. Belgium, Finland, Germany, and Spain each scored points for the second time. The 1965 contest marked the debut of Ireland, a country which went on to dominate the competition. This was also the first contest with over 16 countries participating with a total of 18 entries, the Swedish entry was also sung in English. For the first time since Dutch victory Een Beetje in 1959, the contest took place in Naples, the capital of region Campania in southern Italy and the third-largest city in Italy, after Rome and Milan. This is Italys first hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest, the host venue was the then new Sala di Concerto della RAI, founded few years prior to the contest, in the late fifties and early sixties. It is located in Viale Marconi in the district of Fuorigrotta, the structure has three TV studios for a total of 1227 m² and capacity of 370 persons, used for the filming of programs and fiction and an auditorium. The Neapolitan song archives are housed in it. Each country had 10 jury members who distributed three points among their one, two, or three favourite songs, the points were totalled and the first, second, and third placed songs were awarded 5,3, and 1 votes in order. If only one song got every point within the jury it would get all 9 points, if only two songs were chosen, the songs would get 6 and 3 points in order. 18 countries took part, with the Eurovision Song Contest reaching its highest ever number, sweden returned after a one-year absence, and Ireland debuted in the competition. Luxembourg won for the time with the highly controversial Poupée De Cire. Belgium, Finland, Germany, and Spain all scored points for the second time. The competition was also broadcast via the Intervision network, to the Eastern European nations for the very first time, ingvar Wixell, the Swedish participant performed his song in English instead of the original Swedish title Annorstädes vals. The native languages were used for all of the other participants and this led to a rule being introduced for the next 1966 edition, that meant all participants had to perform their songs using one of their national languages. Each performance had a conductor who led the orchestra, each country had 10 jury members who distributed three points among their one, two, or three favourite songs
Eurovision Song Contest 1965
34.
Eurovision Song Contest 1967
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1967 was the 12th edition of Eurovision Song Contest. It took place on 8 April 1967 in Vienna, Austria following Udo Jürgens win at the 1966 contest. The presenter became confused whilst the voting was taking place, and declared the United Kingdoms entry to be the winner before the last country, shaw intensely disliked the composition, though her attitude towards the song somewhat mellowed in later years, even releasing a new version in 2007. The contest long remained the only time Austria had hosted the event, the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Vienna, the capital of Austria. The venue for the contest was the Hofburg Palace, which was the winter residence the Habsburg dynasty. It currently serves as the residence of the President of Austria. The stage setup was a bit unusual this year. There were two revolving mirrored walls on both ends of the stage and started revolving at the start of song and stopped revolving at the end of each song. The hostess, Erika Vaal ended the program by congratulating the winning song, country, denmark chose not to participate and left the contest at this point, to return in 1978. The reason was that the new director for the TV entertainment department at DR thought that the money could be spent in a better way, the United Kingdoms win was their first. Television presenter, artist and musician, Rolf Harris provided the commentary for BBC Television viewers, switzerland received zero votes for the second time. Portugal was represented by Eduardo Nascimento who was the first black singer in the history of Eurovision Song Contest. Rumours claimed that Portuguese prime minister Salazar had chosen this particular singer to show the rest of Europe that he wasnt racist, each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra. Three artists returned in this years contest, the table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1967 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below
Eurovision Song Contest 1967
–
Großer Festsaal der Wiener Hofburg, Vienna. Host venue of the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1967
35.
Eurovision Song Contest 1969
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1969 was the 14th in the series. Four countries won the contest, the first time ever a tie-break situation had occurred, however, there was no rule at the time to cover such an eventuality, so all four countries were declared joint winners. France became the first country to win the contest four times, the Netherlands win was their third. Spain and the United Kingdom each won for the second time, and it was the first time that any country had a winning ESC entry two years in a row. The venue selected to host the 1969 contest was the Teatro Real, the theatre reopened in 1966 as a concert theatre and the main concert venue of the Spanish National Orchestra and the RTVE Symphony Orchestra. The final featured a metal sculpture created by surrealist Spanish artist. The surrealist Spanish artist Salvador Dalí was responsible for designing the publicity material for the 1969 contest as well as the sculpture which was used on stage. It was the first time that the contest resulted in a tie for first place, since there was at the time no rule to cover such an eventuality, all four countries were declared joint winners. Had the later tie-break rule been in place, the Netherlands would have won, United Kingdom would then have been runner up, having received 5 points from Sweden. On the other hand, with the present tie-break rule been in place, France would have been the overall winner, both countries received votes from 9 countries, but France received 4 points from 2 countries whereas Spain received 3 points as their highest vote. A common urban legend on ESC forums and festivals is that just prior to the show, Laurita Valenzuela, the producers assured her that such a thing would never happen. Austria was absent from the contest, refusing to participate in a contest staged in Franco-ruled Spain, only the BBC has the exclusive right to represent the United Kingdom. Each performance had a conductor who led the orchestra, five artists returned in this years contest. Louis Neefs for Belgium who last represented the nation in 1967, the table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1969 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below
Eurovision Song Contest 1969
–
Teatro Real, Madrid. Host venue of the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1969
Eurovision Song Contest 1969
–
Lenny Kuhr 's dress
Eurovision Song Contest 1969
–
The final results of ESC 1969
36.
Eurovision Song Contest 1970
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1970 was the 15th Eurovision Song Contest, held on 21 March 1970 at the RAI Congrescentrum in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Amsterdam contest is regarded as one of the most significant in Eurovision history for a number of reasons, Ireland won with eighteen-year-old Dana and a song called All Kinds of Everything. The UK came second for the time, six votes behind Ireland. Luxembourg received zero votes for the only time, due to there being four winners in the previous contest, a question was raised as to which nation would host the 1970 Eurovision. With the UK having hosted the 1968 Contest and Spain the 1969 Contest, only France, a toss of a coin resulted in the host country being decided as the Netherlands. The Congrescentrum, venue of the 1970 contest, is a semi-permanent exhibit at the Ferdinand Bolstraat to Amsterdam and this building was replaced in 1961 by the current RAI building on Europes Square. The current congress and event center on Europe Square, was designed by Alexander Bodon, the Dutch producers were forced to pad out the show as only 12 nations decided to make the trip to Amsterdam. The result was a format which has endured almost to the present day, an extended opening sequence set the scene, while every entry was introduced by a short video postcard featuring each of the participating artists, ostensibly in their own nation. However, the postcards for Switzerland, Luxembourg and Monaco were all filmed on location in Paris, interestingly, the long introduction film was followed by what probably is one of the shortest ever introductions by any presenter. Willy Dobbe only welcomed the viewers in English, French and Dutch, on screen captions introduced each entry, with the song titles listed all in lower case and the names of the artist and composers/authors all in capitals. The set design was devised by Roland de Groot, a design was composed of a number of curved horizontal bars. To avoid an incident like in 1969, a tie rule was created and it stated that, if two or more songs gained the same number of votes and were tied for first place, each song would have to be performed again. After which each national jury would have a show of hands of which they thought was the best, if the countries tied again, then they would share first place. Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal and Sweden boycotted this contest as they were not pleased with the result of 1969, Portugal did however host a National final, being won by Sérgio Borges. Of the participating singers, a number were already established performers, notably, the United Kingdom sent Welsh singer and Apple recording artist Mary Hopkin, while David Alexandre Winter represented Luxembourg. The contest is notable for the appearance of the then unknown Julio Iglesias. In the run-up to the Contest, the United Kingdom were favourites to win, so sure of victory, the UK delegation had organised a winners party to be thrown after the contest. In the end, the two countries in the running were the UK and Ireland, albeit the latter holding the lead throughout the voting
Eurovision Song Contest 1970
–
RAI Congrescentrum, Amsterdam - host venue of the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1970
Eurovision Song Contest 1970
–
Dana sings the winning song All Kinds of Everything
37.
Eurovision Song Contest 1971
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1971 was the sixteenth edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Dublin, Ireland on 3 April 1971, monacos win was their first and only victory. The song was performed by a French singer, living in France, sung in French, conducted by a French native, the contest was held at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, the capital and most populous city of Ireland. This was the first time that the contest was held in Ireland, for the first time, each participating broadcaster was required to televise all the songs in previews prior to the live final. Reports suggested that Castel had not even had time to buy a suitable dress for the show. The BBC were worried about the audience reaction to the UK song due to the hostilities raging in Northern Ireland. They specifically selected a singer from Northern Ireland, Clodagh Rodgers, however, Rodgers still received death threats from the IRA for representing the UK. Groups of up to six people were allowed to perform for the first time and this was only RTÉs second outside broadcast in colour. The contest was broadcast in Iceland, the USA and Hong Kong several days later, while this meant that no country could score fewer than 34 points, it had one major problem, some jury members tended to award only one or two points. Whether this was done to increase their respective countries chances of winning is not known for sure, however, the system remained in place for the 1972 and 1973 contests. Malta made their début in this years contest, while Austria, Finland, Norway, Portugal and this brought the total number of countries to eighteen. Each performance had a conductor who directed the orchestra, two artists returned to the competition this year, Katja Ebstein represented Germany for the second consecutive year, while Jacques Raymond had previously represented Belgium in 1963. Below is a summary of all perfect 10 scores that were given during the voting, the table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1971 contest, along with the spokespeople who were responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below. The Eurovision Song Contest, The Official History, John Kennedy OConnor, Carlton Books Ltd, ISBN 1-84442-994-6 Official website
Eurovision Song Contest 1971
–
Gaiety Theatre, Dublin - host venue of the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1971
Eurovision Song Contest 1971
–
Saskia & Serge finishing 6th with their entry " Tijd "
38.
Eurovision Song Contest 1972
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1972 was the 17th annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, although Monaco had won the previous years contest, the principality was unable to meet the demands of hosting the event. Séverine made the trip to the Scottish capital Edinburgh to pass on the Grand Prix to Vicky Leandros, however, she looked thoroughly uninterested in the Monegasque entry when seen by viewers checking her watch before the song was performed. This marked the time that the contest was held in the United Kingdom. However, this is the first time that the UK hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in a venue outside England, the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest was hosted by Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. Usher Hall, the venue for the 1972 contest, is a hall, situated on Lothian Road, in the west end of Edinburgh. It has hosted concerts and events since its construction in 1914 and can hold approximately 2,900 people in its recently restored auditorium, the Hall is flanked by The Royal Lyceum Theatre on the right and The Traverse Theatre on the left. Historic Scotland has registered the Hall with Category A listed building status, the stage design included a screen to introduce and accompany the on stage competing performances, and to show an interval act and voting sequence that were done at Edinburgh Castle. The interval act was performed at the outside vast Esplanade of the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle, the jurors were stationed in the safety of the castle, and watched the competing performances at Usher Hall on TV. Each country had two members, one aged between 16 and 25 and one aged between 26 and 55. They each awarded 1 to 5 points for each song, other than the song of their own country and they cast their votes immediately after each song was performed and the votes were then collected and counted. The eventual winner, Luxembourg, remained in a scoring position throughout the voting. 1972 was the first year that had no ties in the voting, every year prior to 1972, at least two countries had received the same score. All countries who participated in the 1971 contest were present this year, with no withdrawals, returns, the Irish entry was in Irish, so far the countrys only entry in that language. Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra, four artists returned to the competition this year. Below is a summary of all perfect 10 scores that were given during the voting, each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the event in their own native language. Apart from the countries, the contest was transmitted in live for the first time in the continent of Asia, in the countries Japan, Taiwan, Thailand. Brazil and Greece also provided live broadcasting, iceland and Israel broadcast it a few days later
Eurovision Song Contest 1972
–
Usher Hall, Edinburgh - venue of the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1972
39.
Tereza Kesovija
–
Tereza Ana Kesovija is an internationally acclaimed Yugoslav and Croatian singer. She is one of the most recognizable figures on the Balkan music scene and she also had a successful career in France. She has held many concerts around the world, Tereza was born in Dubrovnik and grew up in Konavle and Dubrovnik where she got her early music education. She won a federal young Musicians Competition in Ljubljana, Slovenia, afterwards, she graduated from the flute program at the Zagreb Music Academy and as a student began appearing in amateur music events. In 1962, shortly after the start of her career, she won her first international contest at Saint-Vincent. After this success Tereza had a tour in USSR and she recorded there one EP with Italian songs for the biggest Russian music company – Melodiya and she spent 1963 and 1964 touring USSR, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden. She also had a lot of TV appearances in these countries, in 1965, she moved to France, although she did not speak French. There she became a famous star, at the beginning she was singing in cabarets. I used to remain in smoke until early in the morning, waiting for my performances I didn’t know what to do. I was sitting all alone smoking cigarette after cigarette. ”In 1967 and it was her first big French success sold out in more than 50000 copies. After album La chanson de Lara she recorded her second French album C’est ma chanson with song Je laime and it was sold out in more than 160000 copies. With the song Bien plus fort, Tereza was chosen by Grace Kelly to represent Monaco on Eurovision and she was frequently called as La bête de scène or Super-Dalida by French press. In 1968 Tereza performed with Enrico Macias at the Olympia Concert Hall in Paris and it was her second Olympia after 1966. During the 1970s Tereza became world-known start representing Yugoslav and French song worldwide, in Yugoslavia, her song Nono moj dobri Nono was popular. Claudio Villa recorded Il tuo mondo, an Italian version of Terezas Nono and Mireille Mathieu recorded the French version and she performed on many famous festivals In Yugoslavia, she was honored with Best Female Singer of the Year Award six years in a row. Her performs on Yugoslav festivals were always finished with Terezas triumph and she won many golden records and for it, she won for several times the Yugoslav award for Best Record Seller - Golden Bird. In 1972 she represented Yugoslavia on Eurovision with Muzika i ti and she won ninth place and recorded a French cover, La Musique et toi. At the beginning of the 1970s she moved from Paris to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, in 1978 she returned to with her interpretation of Je suis née ce jour-là
Tereza Kesovija
–
Tereza Kesovija (2009)
40.
Ambasadori
–
Ambasadori were a Yugoslav pop band from Sarajevo, SR Bosnia-Herzegovina, SFR Yugoslavia active from 1968 until 1980. They soon brought guitarist Slobodan Vujović, a civilian, into the band and their very first performance took place in May 1969 in Sarajevos Dom JNA. Soon after, eighteen-year-old Zdravko Čolić, fresh high school graduate, no one from the festival noticed the plagiarism and the band avoided controversy. The song became the debut release — 7-inch single Plačem za tvojim usnama / Zapjevaj released in 1971 by Beograd Disk label. Ambasadori represented SFR Yugoslavia at the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest, finishing second last among the 18 participating countries
Ambasadori
–
Ambasadori in 1976
41.
Eurovision Song Contest 1982
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1982 was the 27th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 24 April 1982 in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, the German entrant, Nicole, was winner with the song Ein bißchen Frieden. Germany received 1.61 times as many points as runner-up Israel, which was a record under the current scoring system until 2009 and this was the first time that Germany won the contest. They have competed in the every year since the contests inception. The opening of the contest showed a map of Europe, with the translation Where is Harrogate, popping up on-screen from the languages of the various countries. The question was always in the language in which the countrys song was performed. The Irish entry was sung in English, but the translation of the question in the map was in Irish, then the map zoomed into Harrogates location in Yorkshire, followed by an introduction video spotlighting the town. Greece was due to participate in the contest with the song Sarantapente Kopelies performed by Themis Adamantidis, although drawn to perform in second place, ERT withdrew the entry a few weeks before the contest. Antenne 2 became the new broadcaster for Eurovision after public outcry, the tradition of previous years winners handing over the prize to current winners was not followed by Bucks Fizz, winners in 1981. Irish band Chips lost out in their national finals, which would, had they been successful, have led to the situation of two bands in the same Eurovision with the same name. Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England, historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters and RHS Harlow Carr gardens. Nearby is the Yorkshire Dales national park and the Nidderdale AONB, Harrogate grew out of two smaller settlements, High Harrogate and Low Harrogate, in the 17th century. The town became known as The English Spa in the Georgian Era, in the 17th and 18th centuries its chalybeate waters were a popular health treatment, and the influx of wealthy but sickly visitors contributed significantly to the wealth of the town. The Harrogate International Centre was chosen as the host venue for the contest, the grand convention and exhibition centre opened short time prior to the contest, and was the first big event held in the main 2000-seat auditorium. There were 18 competitors in this years final, No year since has had this few competitors in the final of the competition. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs, Germany had the advantage of performing last. After coming second in 1980 and second in Dublin the year previously, Ralph Siegel, the winner, Nicole, beat the nearest competition by 61 points and over 13 million West Germans watched her victory on television. Germany was the leader for nearly the entire voting process
Eurovision Song Contest 1982
42.
Eurovision Song Contest 1984
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1984, the 29th event of its kind, was held on 5 May 1984 in Luxembourg. The presenter, Désirée Nosbusch, only 19 years old at the time, hosted the show in a lax manner, which was quite unusual for the show at the time. She manifested her fluency in four languages by switching between a strong transatlantic English, French, German and Luxembourgish in the course of talking, swedens the Herreys were the winners of this contest with the song, Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley. This was the Nordic countrys second win, and the first song performed in Swedish, the previous Swedish winner, ABBA, ten years ago had performed their song Waterloo in English. Israel withdrew from the contest due to Yom Hazikaron being commemorated on the same date, iceland was going to participate but withdrew due to lack of financial support. 1984 is also a notable for the audible booing that could be heard from the audience and it was said that the booing was due to English football hooligans having rioted in Luxembourg in November 1983 after being knocked out of the UEFA European Football Championship. However, the song managed a pretty good showing, reaching seventh place. The city of Luxembourg, also known as Luxembourg City, is a commune with city status, and it is located at the confluence of the Alzette and Pétrusse Rivers in southern Luxembourg. The city contains the historic Luxembourg Castle, established by the Franks in the Early Middle Ages, the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, inaugurated in 1964 as the Théâtre Municipal de la Ville de Luxembourg, became the venue for the 1984 contest. It is the major venue for drama, opera and ballet. It also hosted the 1973 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, host conductor in bold Notes 1. ^ Contains some words in English. 2. ^ Contains some words in Italian,3. ^ Contains some words in German. Before the contest, Sweden was not expected to win or even achieve a high placing, in the run-up to the Contest, bookmakers Ladbrokes had the lowest odds on songs from Ireland, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Sweden was considered a dark horse entry with high odds, each country had a jury that awarded one to eight,10 and 12 points for their top ten songs. At the close of the jurys votes, there was only a difference of six points between Sweden and Ireland, at 141 and 135 respectively. However, Yugoslavia was the country who had not given any points to Ireland, and Portugal. Portugals voting also cost Denmark, who had been holding at a third position, even leading the scoreboard for a short time, in that place. Portugal at the time had only given Denmark one point making Denmarks total 101 points
Eurovision Song Contest 1984
43.
Eurovision Song Contest 1985
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1985 was the 30th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on 4 May 1985 in Gothenburg, Sweden, the presenter was entertainer Lill Lindfors, whose jokey dress rip after the interval act was said to have not amused the wife of EBU scrutineer Frank Naef. Were the winners with the song La det swinge, win for Norway was the countrys first. What do you think we are, after an energetic reprise, the two women embraced to a standing ovation from the audience. During the voting, it was not immediately evident that Norway would win the Contest, Germany took a commanding lead in the first half, with Norway fifth place behind Germany, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom around the end of the first half of voting. Finally, with five juries left, Germany, Sweden and Norway were tightly wrapped around the positions with 87,86. At that point, Sweden briefly took the lead away from Germany, Sweden was the fourth-to-last jury, conceding their brief lead by awarding Germany eight points and Norway the maximum twelve. With only three left to vote, Norway kept the lead, in one of the shortest winning stretches during voting in the contests history. The Netherlands and Yugoslavia did not participate in this Contest, due to the national Remembrance of the Dead in the Netherlands, despite this Yugoslavia did choose its song, Pokora, a duet sung by Zorica Kondža and Josip Genda. 1985 was also the year when no less than thirteen previous Eurovision artists made a comeback and this also applied to the winners, Bobbysocks. Who had attended once before as soloists, Hanne Krogh performed for Norway in 1971, while Elisabeth Andreassen for Sweden in 1982 in a duet, Chips, Kikki herself also returned this year for host country Sweden, and was thus competing against Elisabeth Andreassen and Bobbysocks. Lys Assia, the winner of the first ever Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, was the guest of honour of this edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. She was introduced by the presenter Lill Lindfors, the camera zoomed close to Lys, who rose to greet the audience, while the orchestra played the song Refrain, her winning song. Host conductor in bold Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs. The voting itself was exciting, the German favourites looked to be cruising to an early victory, however both Sweden and Norway did their best to keep up and by the time the UK jury delivered their votes, Germany had seen its lead smashed. Lill Lindfors had a malfunction as she proceeded to the stage for the voting procedure. As she walked on stage, the skirt of her dress came away, leaving her in just her underwear and the top half of her dress. After a few seconds of pretending to be shocked, Lindfors unfastened the flaps of her dress across her shoulders, to reveal a white gown
Eurovision Song Contest 1985
44.
Eurovision Song Contest 1988
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1988 was the 33rd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place on 30 April 1988 in Dublin, Ireland, the presenters were Pat Kenny and Michelle Rocca. The host broadcaster was Radio Telefís Éireann which revamped the production style compared to its earlier editions. The winner was Switzerland with the song Ne partez pas sans moi, performed by future international superstar Celine Dion, Switzerland beat the United Kingdom by just a point in the last vote to win the title. The Cypriot song had been drawn to be performed 2nd in the running order, the stage itself, conceived by Paula Farrell under chief production designer Michael Grogan, was also the largest and most elaborate ever constructed for the Eurovision Song Contest. The Postcards featured the participants doing things in Ireland from culture, to tradition, lowney was also the director of the shows interval act, introduced after the competing songs and before the votes announcement. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2 and 1 point for its top ten songs and this edition features one of the closest and fickle-ending votes in the history of the contest. With three countries left to vote, the UK was well in the lead with 133 points against Switzerlands 118, with the conclusion of voting from the penultimate jury, the UK was holding a five-point lead over Switzerland. Switzerland was the first to be named with six points, edging it into a one-point lead over the UK, after earlier strong votes from most countries to the UK, it seemed highly likely that the UK would be given one of the higher remaining set of points. Twenty-one countries took part, after a plan of twenty-two. This was classed as a breach of the Cypriot rules of selecting their entry at this time as well as an infringement of the Eurovision Song Contest rules, the contest helped launch an international career for two artists, the winner for Switzerland Celine Dion and Luxembourg’s representative Lara Fabian. Belgian-Canadian Lara Fabian started a career after the contest with becoming established in various countries worldwide. The UK entry was written and composed by Julie Forsyth, the daughter of the entertainer Bruce Forsyth who was present, when interviewed afterwards he was particularly annoyed at the Dutch jury not having given a vote to the UK, as they had done some work there
Eurovision Song Contest 1988
45.
Hajde da ludujemo
–
Hajde da ludujemo was the Yugoslav entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, held in Zagreb, SFR Yugoslavia. The song was composed by Zrinko Tutić and Alka Vuica, and was sung by Tatjana Matejaš, commonly known as Tajči, in the Serbo-Croatian language. On the night of the contest, the song was performed 15th, following Frances Joëlle Ursull with White and Black Blues and preceding Portugals Nucha, at the close of the voting, it had received 81 points, placing seventh in a field of 22 countries. The song was succeeded as Yugoslav entry at the 1991 contest with Bebi Dol with Brazil and it was covered by Ivana Banfić in 1999
Hajde da ludujemo
–
" Hajde da ludujemo " cover
46.
Eurovision Song Contest 1991
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1991 was the 36th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 4 May 1991 in Rome. Due to the Gulf War and mounting tensions in Yugoslavia, RAI decided to move the contest from Sanremo to Rome and this was the last event in which the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia participated. The 1992 contest saw the participation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and it was also the first time that Germany was represented in their reunited form since the East Germany joined West Germany by the German reunification. Carola was the winner of this Contest with the song Fångad av en stormvind and this was the third victory for Sweden, the last one being in 1984. There was a tie between Carola and Frances Amina, as both had received 146 points and this necessitated a count-back, a tie-breaking measure introduced after the infamous four-way tie in 1969s Contest. Both Sweden and France had received four lots of 12 points and this was the closest France has ever come to winning the ESC since 1977. Had todays tie-break rule been in place, France would have won in 1969 and 1991, the presenters were Gigliola Cinquetti and Toto Cutugno, Italian winners of the ESC to date, which opened the contest singing Insieme,1992 and Non ho letà. Cutugno had some difficulty with the pronunciation of the titles and names of the artists. Despite this, in Italy almost seven million people watched the show, in addition to tallying the vote numbers in English and French, Cinquetti and Cutugno gave each of the jury allotments in Italian as well. Nearly all of the commentary during the voting was given in Italian, at the time, Carlson had appeared numerous times on Italian TV and this was seen as one of her largest audiences. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs. During the final vote none of the top three contenders - Sweden, Israel and France - had received any points up until the last 12-point vote. This vote went to France and for the first time in years, there was a tie for first place. However, since the four-way tie of 1969, the rules had been altered to ensure a single outright winner, the first step in the procedure was to check the number of 12-point votes awarded to each country. Sweden and France were still tied, but when counting the number of 10-point votes, Sweden had more and was finally declared the winner. If the tie occurred under modern tie-breaking rules, France would have won because it had voted for by more countries than Sweden. Below is a summary of all 12 point in the final, The singers were asked to sing a known Italian song which would then be used as a short clip for the postcard
Eurovision Song Contest 1991
47.
Brazil (Bebi Dol song)
–
Brazil was a song of the Eurovision Song Contest 1991, performed in Serbo-Croatian by Bebi Dol, representing Yugoslavia. In 1991, Bebi Dol finally won the National Eurovision Contest, Bebi Dol only took one point for the evening, finishing second-last. Despite the low ranking at Eurovision, the became a huge hit in Yugoslavia, and the copyright was sold to Italy, Greece. The song was succeeded as Yugoslav entry at the 1992 contest by Extra Nena with Ljubim te pesmama
Brazil (Bebi Dol song)
–
"Brazil"
48.
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Italy has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 42 times since making its debut at the first contest in 1956. It was one of seven countries that competed at the very first contest. Italy competed at the contest frequently until 1997, after a fourteen-year absence, the country competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. Italy has won the contest twice, in 1958, Domenico Modugno finished third with the song Nel blu, dipinto di blu. Renamed Volare, the became a huge international hit, reaching the US number one spot. Emilio Pericoli also finished third in 1963, before Italy won for the first time in 1964 with Gigliola Cinquetti, Cinquetti returned to the contest in 1974 and finished second with the song Si, losing to ABBA. Italy then finished third in 1975 with Wess and Dori Ghezzi, the countrys best result of the 1980s was Umberto Tozzi and Raf finishing third in 1987. Italys second victory in the contest came in 1990 with Toto Cutugno, other good 1990s results were Mia Martini in 1992 and Jalisse in 1997, who both finished fourth. After 1997, Italy withdrew from the competition, the EBU announced that they would work harder to bring Italy back to the contest in 2010, along with former participants Monaco and Austria, but again Italy did not participate in the contest. Italys return to the contest proved to be successful, with Raphael Gualazzi finishing second, Italy has finished in the top ten in four of the last six contests. In 2015, Il Volo won the televoting receiving votes from all countries, since the introduction of the 50/50 voting system in 2009, this was the first time that the winner of the viewers vote did not win the contest. Italy has withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest a number of times, the first withdrawal was in 1981, when RAI stated that interest had diminished in the country. This absence continued through the year, before Italy returned in 1983. Italy again withdrew in 1986 when RAI decided not to enter the contest, from 1994 to 1996 Italy withdrew again, with RAI citing a lack of interest in participating. Italy returned in 1997, before withdrawing again without explanation, none of the Eurovision winning songs were particularly successful in the Italian charts. Despite the Eurovision contests taking place more than a month before the vote, Italian censors refused to allow the contest. The song thus remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month, at the contest in Brighton, Cinquetti finished second, losing to ABBA. Sì went on to be a UK top ten hit, peaking at number eight and it also reached the German top 20
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Bobby Solo in Naples (1965)
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Italy
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Marco Mengoni in Malmö (2013)
Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Il Volo in Vienna (2015)
49.
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 56 times since making its debut in 1958, missing only three contests since then. Sweden is one of the most successful competing nations at the Eurovision, with a total of six victories in the contest, Sweden is also the contests most successful country of the 21st century, with two wins from nine top five results. In total, Sweden has achieved 23 top five results in the contest, since 1959, the Swedish entry has been chosen through an annual televised competition, known since 1967 as Melodifestivalen. At the 1997 contest, Sweden was one of the first five countries to adopt televoting, Swedens first entrant in the contest was Alice Babs in 1958, who was placed fourth. This remained the countrys best result until 1966, when Lill Lindfors, Swedens first Eurovision victory was in 1974 with the song Waterloo, performed by ABBA. Thanks to their victory in Brighton, ABBA went on to worldwide success. In the 1980s, Sweden achieved three top three results. After Carola finished third in 1983, the Herreys gave Sweden its second victory in 1984 with Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, kikki Danielsson then finished third in 1985. Carola returned to the contest in 1991, to give the Swedes their third win with Fångad av en stormvind, charlotte Nilsson gave the country a second win of the decade in 1999, with Take Me to Your Heaven. The 1990s also saw two third-place results, for Jan Johansen in 1995 and One More Time in 1996, in 2010, Anna Bergendahl became the first Swedish entrant to fail to make it to the final, finishing 11th in the semifinal, only five points from qualification. They also finished third in 2011 with Eric Saade and Popular, third in 2014 with Sanna Nielsen and Undo, and fifth with Frans and the song If I Were Sorry in 2016. Sweden has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest six times and is the country to have hosted the event in five different decades. Together with Croatia and Malta it was the country to never be relegated, under the previous rules of the contest. Melodifestivalen is a music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television. It has chosen the representative for the Eurovision Song Contest since 1959. It is Swedens most popular shows, and it has been estimated that more than 4 million Swedes watch the show annually. Almost every Swedish entry for Eurovision has been selected through Melodifestivalen, only Swedens first entry in 1958, was not selected through Melodifestivalen, having been selected internally by the Swedish broadcaster at the time, Swedish Radio Service. ^ In 2008, Sweden qualified through the back-up jury selection, If a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ingvar Wixell at Naples (1965)
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The Ark at Helsinki (2007)
Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Charlotte Perrelli at Belgrade (2008)
50.
Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Israel has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 39 times since making its debut in 1973. Israel is able to enter the contest as a Israel Broadcasting Authority member organisation of the European Broadcasting Union, Israel has won the contest three times. Israels first appearance at the contest in 1973 was successful, with Ilanit finishing fourth, Israel then achieved back to back victories in 1978 and 1979, with wins for Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta, with the song A-Ba-Ni-Bi and Gali Atari and Milk and Honey, with Hallelujah. The countrys best results in the 1980s were the second-place finishes for Avi Toledano in 1982, former winner Izhar Cohen returned to place fifth in 1985. Duo Datz finished third in 1991, before Israel achieved its third victory in 1998, with Dana International, Eden then finished fifth in 1999. Israel has hosted the contest twice, in 1979 and 1999, in 1980, the IBA declined to host the contest for a second successive year for financial reasons. Instead the contest was held in The Hague, as the date set for the 1980 contest conflicted with Yom Hazikaron – Israeli Memorial Day – Israel did not participate. This is the time that the winning country did not compete the following year. As of 2014, Israel has the record for most participations in the contest without ever coming last, since the Introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Israel has failed to reach the final six times. In 2014, the failed to qualify for the fourth consecutive year. In 2015, Israel reached the final for the first time in five years, the only Israeli entrant to achieve a better result in the 21st century is Shiri Maimon in 2005, who gave the country its tenth top five result in the contest, finishing fourth. To date there have been three Israeli victories in the contest, Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta won in Paris in 1978 with the uptempo A-Ba-Ni-Bi. On home ground in Jerusalem the following year, Israel won again, unusually, Israel did not defend the title in 1980. The third victory came almost 20 years later in Birmingham in 1998, singer Dana International took top honours with the song Diva, setting off widespread celebrations in Israel. Israels earliest selections were picked by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, the first singer to represent the country in 1973 was Ilanit, who finished 4th. Criticism increased after she was sent again four years later, leading to a rule that the winner of the already established Hebrew Song, the Eurovision Song Contest winners of 1978 and 1979 were selected by this method. From 1981 the selection process was handled by the Kdam Eurovision with the exceptions of 1990,1998,1999,2000, 2002–2004, 2006–2007 and 2010 where the selections were again picked by the IBA. The winner of the 1980 Hebrew Song and Chorus Festival, a band called The Brothers & the Sisters with the song Pizmon Chozer, after winning the contest in 1978 and 1979, the IBA was financially and logistically unable to organise the event for the second consecutive year
Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Gali Atari and Milk and Honey at Jerusalem (1979)
Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Israel
Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
David D'Or at Istanbul (2004)
Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Teapacks at Helsinki (2007)
51.
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Cyprus has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 33 times since making its debut in 1981. Cyprus first entry was the group Island, who finished sixth, the countrys best result in the contest is three fifth-place finishes, in 1982 with Anna Vissi,1997 with Hara & Andreas Constantinou and 2004 with Lisa Andreas. Since 2006, Cyprus failed to qualify from the round for six out of eight years. On 14 July 2014, Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation officially confirmed their return to the contest in 2015, since its first entry, Cyprus has participated every year except 1988,2001 and 2014. In 2001, the country did not qualify for the contest due to insufficiently high average scores in previous contests, in 2014, the broadcaster decided to withdraw from the contest and cited public indifference and the economic crisis for not taking part. On 3 October 2013, the Cypriot broadcaster Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation withdrew from the 2014 contest, reasons that were cited are public opinion regarding the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis and budget restrictions as factors that influenced this decision. Cyprus is famous for always exchanging 12 points with Greece in the Semi Final and Final, the last time Cyprus gave Greece less than 12 points was in 2015. Cyprus and Turkey never voted for each other until 2004, a taboo attributed to the ongoing Cyprus dispute, since its first entry in 1981, Cyprus has had a mixture of good and bad results. The best result achieved so far is a place, reached by Anna Vissi in 1982, Hara and Andreas Constantinou in 1997. The lowest result was a last place in 1986, with the song Tora Zo sung by Elpida, in the 1980s and 1990s, Cyprus had managed to reach the top 10 a number of times, something which made the Contest become popular in the Cypriot public. Since the last best result of the country in 2004, Cyprus performance has dropped notably, from 2006 to 2009 and again in 2011 &2013, the country didnt manage to reach the final. At the same time when Cyprus performance in the contest dropped vertically, Greeces performance improved very fast by one win and this created a shift of interest, with the Cypriot public being more interested in the success of the Greek entry. In May 2014, the radio station London Greek Radio announced that Cyprus were planning a return to the contest after a one-year break. A few weeks later Eurovision website Wiwibloggs announced that Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation had confirmed their return, on 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed their return to the contest in 2015. Cyprus hosted the Eurovision Song Project, which included 2 semi-finals,1 second chance round, if a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition, back in 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the finals the following year. As of 2016, Cyprus voting history is as follows, Composer Award In addition, since 2009, British writer and TV presenter Nathan Morley has provided the CyBC Radio commentary. Cyprus in the Eurovision Young Musicians Cyprus in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest National Final Cyprus Points to and from Cyprus eurovisioncovers. co. uk Music. net. cy - Cyprus National Finals 2010
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Alex Panayi at Dublin (1995)
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Lisa Andreas at Istanbul (2004)
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Evridiki at Helsinki (2007)
52.
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
–
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall is a large concert hall and convention center in Zagreb, Croatia. It is named after Vatroslav Lisinski, a 19th-century Croatian composer, the building has a big hall with 1841 seats and a small hall with 305 seats. A large lobby doubles as an exhibition area, the decision to build a new multifunctional hall in Zagreb was made in 1957. A team of architects led by Marijan Haberle won the design contest, the construction began in 1961, but flooding and financial difficulties pushed the completion date into the next decade. The hall was opened on 29 December 1973. The hall saw 10 million visitors in the first thirty years of operation, in 2007, a total of 450 different shows were put together, recording over 760,000 visitors. Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall was the venue of the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest, in 1992, the halls copper roof cover was completely replaced. Further reconstruction and redecoration work was done in 1999 and 2009
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
–
View from the southwest
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
–
The Big Hall
53.
Eurovision Song Contest 1993
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1993 was the 38th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 15 May 1993 in Millstreet, County Cork, Ireland. Niamh Kavanagh was the winner of this Eurovision for Ireland with the song and this was Irelands fifth victory, and equalled the tally of five Eurovision victories achieved by France in 1977 and Luxembourg in 1983. However, the venue, a large indoor well- equipped equestrian centre was deemed more suitable as the location by RTÉ. With huge support from local and national authorities, plus several businesses in the region and it was also the largest outside broadcast ever attempted by state broadcaster RTÉ and was deemed a technical triumph for all involved. The stage was created by Alan Farquharson, who was also chief production designer two years later in Dublin, BBC newsreader Nicholas Witchell caused controversy by remarking on the air, shortly before the contest, that it would be held in a cowshed in Ireland. The top two countries of this contest were the same as the top two countries in the years contest, being Ireland and the United Kingdom. This was, however, merely a measure that was plainly not a sustainable solution for future years. After some extremely tight voting, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia edged through, each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs. The voting required a jury to deliberate in the midst of the war in Bosnia. Warm applause rang round the hall as a voice on a phone line was heard to deliver the familiar greeting, Hello Millstreet. By the final few juries it became clear that either Ireland or the United Kingdom were going to win, after the penultimate jury had voted, it looked to be a lost cause for second-placed Sonia of the UK as she was eleven points behind Niamh Kavanagh. Ostensibly due to technical difficulties, the final jury to announce their results was the Maltese jury. However, the name of neither country came up, instead it was Ireland that were awarded the final points of the evening, finishing with what looked in retrospect a comfortable twenty-three-point victory. Interestingly, given the way the votes were cast, having Maltas vote announced last was the way for the contest for victory to go down to the final jury. 1993 was the last year that the points were announced by telephone
Eurovision Song Contest 1993
54.
Eurovision Song Contest 1995
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1995 was the 40th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 13 May 1995 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. This years competition was the last with one host until 18 years later in 2013 in Malmö. This contest broke the chain of victories that Ireland enjoyed in 1992,1993 and this was Irelands 3rd year in succession to host the contest - and to mark the 40th show, it was opened with a 4-minute retrospective showing images from the contests history. The Norwegian group Secret Garden was the winner of this contest with the instrumental song. Incidentally, Secret Gardens violinist was Fionnuala Sherry, who is Irish and it was his birthday that night, but according to host Kennedy, He wouldnt say which one. Nonetheless, the audience sang Happy Birthday for him, assisted by the orchestra, after winning the 1994 contest, RTÉ were worried about whether they could afford to host a third consecutive contest in 1995. The BBC had offered to take on the responsibility of hosting the contest, in the end RTÉ decided to stage the contest on its own. However they did ask the EBU that, should Ireland win once more, the favourite to win the contest, according to bookmakers, was Sweden with the pop-ballad Se på mig. Other countries in contention for the win were Croatia, Denmark, Israel, Spain, the winning song was something new at Eurovision in that it contained only 24 words accompanied by long violin solos. The United Kingdom contributed a modern rap number, while the previous year’s runner-up, Poland, after the voting was completed, Norway was the winner with 148 points, followed by Spains Vuelve conmigo with 119 points, and Sweden gaining 100 points. The stage was designed by Alan Farquharson who also designed the set of the 1993 contest that took place in Millstreet, the interval act consisted of several well known Irish performers including Clannad, Brian Kennedy and was composed by leading musician Michael OSuilleabhan. The EBU decreased the number of back to 23 to make sure the show wouldnt last longer than 3 hours. 5 of the 6 countries that were relegated the year came back to the contest, Luxembourg decided to stop participating completely and Italy withdrew voluntarily. This rumour did, however inspire a popular episode of Father Ted, in any event, RTÉ ended up hosting the contest once again in 1997. Each country had a jury that awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs. Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final, FR Yugoslavia After the breakup of Yugoslavia, third channel of Radio Television of Serbia broadcast the show, although Yugoslavia did not participate
Eurovision Song Contest 1995
55.
Eurovision Song Contest 1996
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was the 41st Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 18 May 1996 in Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, Norway. The presenters were Ingvild Bryn and Morten Harket, Harket, lead singer of a-ha, opened the show with a performance of his single Heavens Not for Saints. Twenty-three countries participated in the contest, with Eimear Quinn of Ireland crowned the winner after the voting, with the song. The song was written by Brendan Graham, who composed the 1994 winner Rock n Roll Kids. It was also a seventh win for Ireland and the most recent win of Ireland. Germany, Israel, Denmark, Hungary, Russia, Macedonia, Macedonia eventually went on to make their debut in 1998. The 1996 contest remains the only Eurovision without a German entry and this year, they reverted to the pre-qualifying round that had been used for the 1993, but this time with just one country exempt from the process - the host Norway. The audio-only pre-qualification round, which was never televised, was used by the EBU in order to shortlist the number of participating nations that would compete in the televised final. With exception to the hosts Norway, audio entries from twenty-nine countries were played to national juries, Germany, Israel, Denmark, Hungary, Russia, Macedonia, and Romania all failed to qualify. As a result, Macedonias submission was never classified as an entry by the EBU. As a leading contributor to the contest, Germany were particularly aggrieved that their entry. It was the year in the history of the ESC in which Germany did not participate in the final. But of course the only good luck wish that was rewarded in the end was that of Irish Taoiseach John Bruton. Secondly, the section was conducted using blue screen virtual reality technology provided by Silicon Graphics. The host Ingvild Bryn introduced the viewers to the room, upon which a 3D scoreboard, views of the green room. The only physical aspects were Ingvild herself and two podiums, for the first time in the Eurovision history, during the voting a spokesperson came to stage down next to Ingvild, the Norwegian one, Ragnhild Sælthun Fjørtoft. Despite a submitted entry from Macedonia, it was never classified as a debut entry. Shaded countries were eliminated from the competition Each country had a jury that awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs
Eurovision Song Contest 1996
56.
Eurovision Song Contest 1997
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1997, was the 42nd Eurovision Song Contest and it was held at the Point Theatre Dublin, Ireland, on 3 May 1997. Carrie Crowley and Boyzone member Ronan Keating were the presenters of the show, belgium, Finland, and Slovakia withdrew from the contest due to the relegation rule. The United Kingdom won the competition, thanks to Katrina and the Waves, Ireland hosted the contest for the fourth time in five years after winning the 1996 in Oslo. Dublin was chosen to be the host city, making it the time that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the Irish capital. The venue for the contest was the Point Theatre located on the North Wall Quay of the River Liffey, the theatre previously hosted the 1994 and 1995 contests. RTÉ once again produced a spectacular show, with a stage that had a smaller performance space for the artists than in previous years. This was the third Eurovision set to be designed by Paula Farrell, there was a wide array of different styles this year. Denmark brought a rap song, Croatia came with their version of the Spice Girls, the music was in general more modern than before, and for the first time in 1991, an up-tempo song won. This year, televoting was tested in five countries, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the results of the televoting countries were, in some cases, different from those that used a jury. Iceland received 16 of its 18 points from five countries. Also, for the first time in Eurovision history, there was a country where not one, television reporter Frédéric Ferrer and 1977 Eurovision winner Marie Myriam each took turns at giving results from that country. Long-time Irish conductor Noel Kelehan was not the host conductor this year, however, from this year, entrants were allowed to use singback without orchestra accompaniment, and in 1999, the orchestra would be abolished completely. Alma Čardžić returned for Bosnia and Herzegovina after last representing the nation in 1994, maarja-Liis Ilus and Şebnem Paker both returned for a 1996 representing Estonia and Turkey respectively. 1. ^ ^ Contained some lyrics in English, iceland got most of its 18 points from the 5 countries that used televoting. Ireland was ostensibly the best scoring country across the televoting countries, the United Kingdom was only eligible to receive points from 4 of them, since they couldnt vote for themselves. Despite being the runner-up, it received only one 12-point score. The UK spokesman Colin Berry remarked, Youre going to like one, Ireland. Causing Terry Wogan to reply, Well, tit for tat, the winning song scored an unprecedented 227 points, it received points from all participating countries, including five sets of 10 points and a record-breaking ten sets of the maximum 12 points
Eurovision Song Contest 1997
57.
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Birmingham in the United Kingdom, following Katrina and it was the UKs fifth win, and the eighth time that the UK hosted the contest, the last being in Harrogate in 1982. The UK has not won or hosted the contest since, belgium, Finland, and Slovakia returned to the contest after a 1996. Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Italy did not return until 2011. Dana International eventually went on to win the contest, scoring 172 points, with the song Diva, written by Svika Pick and Yoav Ginai. The singer had attracted media attention both in Israel and Europe since she had undergone gender reassignment in 1993, being the first openly transgender performer to enter the competition. The United Kingdom, along with their national broadcaster the BBC and it was the first time since the 1982 that the Eurovision Song Contest was staged in the United Kingdom, and the last to date. This was an eighth time that the United Kingdom staged the contest, having done so for the 1960,1963,1968,1972,1974,1977. The National Indoor Arena had been used for major events in the past. The week after the Eurovision Song Contest, the city was to host the 24th G8 summit, with Terry Wogan vacating his hotel room to make way for Bill Clinton. Ironically, the contest was held in an English speaking country for the last time the contest was run without the free language rule, so only the UK, Malta, and Ireland performed in English. The postcards continued with the theme of Birmingham old and new, looking at a traditional object. Popular Britpop songs and also pieces of classical music were used as background music. Finally, the flag of the country about to perform was formed, a jury was used if there were exceptional reasons not to use a televote. Macedonia, participating as Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, took part for the first time, Israel could have returned in 1997, but opted not to due to Holocaust Remembrance Day, meaning they returned for the first time in three years. The Italian broadcaster, RAI, decided to withdraw from the contest, Russia and Italy did not broadcast the event due to withdrawals. Because Russia did not participate, Channel One decided not to broadcast the 1998 contest, according to other sources Channel One had expected Channel Russia to broadcast the contest. Danijela returned for Croatia after last taking part in 1995 as part of the group Magazin, egon Egemann who was the violinist for Gunvor this year, last participated for Switzerland at the 1990
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
–
The National Indoor Arena, which hosted the contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
58.
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1999 was the 44th Eurovision Song Contest, held on 29 May 1999 in Jerusalem, Israel after Dana International won the contest the previous year in the United Kingdom. The venue for the contest was the International Convention Center, the place that hosted the 1979 contest. Israels two previous winners, Izhar Cohen, who won in 1978 with A-Ba-Ni-Bi and Milk and Honeys Gali Atari who won it the year with Hallelujah attended as spectators. The winner of the Contest was Charlotte Nilsson, representing Sweden with Take Me to Your Heaven and this was Swedens fourth win in the Contest and the second in the 1990s. In the run-up to the Contest, many speculated that it would not be held in Israel, long-standing rules in place for decades were abolished during this Contest, rules that each country had to sing in one of their national languages was abolished for the first time since 1977. Furthermore, live music became optional for the first time in the Contests history, IBA took advantage of this and decided to drop the orchestra from the Contest as a way to conserve money for the show. This meant that for the first time all entries used backing track during their performances and this caused controversy for Eurovision traditionalists, with three-time winner Johnny Logan criticising the move, describing the event now as karaoke. Latvia had attempted to participate in the Contest for the first time and this gave Hungary a chance to enter the Contest, however, Magyar Televízió decided not to take part. This allowed Portugal to compete as the 23rd country, austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark and Iceland returned to the Contest after being relegated from competing in 1998. Lithuania also returned to the Contest for the first time in five years, the Lithuanian delegation had had budget problems to contend with, and so the EBU allowed the Lithuanians to arrive in Israel a day later than everyone else. The first delegation on the hand to walk the Holy Land were Estonia. After being relegated from the 1998 Contest, Russias Channel One had decided not to broadcast that years contest, however, as only countries which had broadcast the previous years contest were allowed to enter the next years contest, Russia was forced to miss another year. They were joined by Finland, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Switzerland, the favourites to win the Contest came from Icelands Selma with All Out of Luck, and Cypruss Marlain with Tha Ne Erotas, after an internet poll by fans. But, while Iceland finished second to Sweden, Cyprus failed to inspire televotes, a number of controversies occurred before the Contest. Both artists would eventually represent their countries in Eurovision, in 2006 and 2002 respectively, croatias entry attracted objections from the Norwegian delegation, due to synthesised male vocals being used on the backing track of Doris Dragovićs entry. The interval act was provided by Dana International, who performed a cover of the Stevie Wonder song Free, Dana International also appeared at the end of the show, handing the winning trophy to Nilsson. After pretending that the trophy was too heavy to lift, she fell to the stage, below is a summary of all 12 point in the final
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
–
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
–
The venue of the contest, International Convention Center in Jerusalem
59.
Eurovision Song Contest 2000
–
It was the first time since 1996 that the contest was held on mainland Europe. The contest was the second to be held in Stockholm, the presenters were Kattis Ahlström and Anders Lundin, and the contest was won by the Olsen Brothers who represented Denmark with the song Fly on the Wings of Love. The song was written by one of the brothers, Jørgen Olsen, the Globe Arena was, at the time, the largest venue chosen to host the contest with a capacity of 16,000 spectators. The postcards used to each country participating involved Swedish themes that incorporated each nation in some respect. All the postcards are filmed in Stockholm, Sweden, however, the exception is the postcard for Sweden. The favourite in this years contest was Estonia, who was also a fan favourite, however, as the voting results came in, Denmark immediately took control of the scoreboard, beating Russia into second place and Latvia into 3rd place. Slovakia, Greece and Hungary decided not to compete for financial reasons and these countries were, Finland, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Switzerland. Latvia also joined contest as the country to debut. For the first time, an official CD compilation was released, such a disc was attempted in the previous year, however it lacked four of the competing songs. SVT announced on July 7,1999 that the contest would be hosted by the Globe Arena in Stockholm, other possible candidates had been Scandinavium in Gothenburg and Malmömässan in Malmö. They had previously hosted Eurovision Song Contest 1985 and 1992 respectively, the Globe was said to be chosen because Stockholm hadnt hosted the contest since 1975 and that it would be somewhat cheaper than the other options. The graphic design programme for this years contest was developed by Stockholm Design Lab and was centred around a stylised mouth symbol and it was given the Excellent Swedish Design award later that year. The softness of the mouth was contrasted with a pointy typeface, the intermission during the finale of the ESC was Once Upon a Time Europe Was Covered With Ice, a movie/song directed, composed and edited by Johan Söderberg and produced by John Nordling. For the film Söderberg had traveled all over Europe to record children performing the score, on stage were violinist Caroline Lundgren, drummer Strängnäs Trumkorps plus street musicians from Stockholm and dancers from the Bounce Street Dance Company. There were some controversies concerning some participating countries, israel, who opened the contest, entered a group who waved Israeli and Syrian flags advocating peace between the two nations. The two male singers in the also ran up to each other and kissed for a brief moment. This issue was rejected by the European Broadcasting Union, later, NOS declared that it was both for practical reasons as well as because they found it inappropriate to broadcast a light entertainment programme on the night of such a catastrophic event. As a result, televoting had to be suspended and the Dutch votes were given by a jury instead
Eurovision Song Contest 2000
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Stockholm 2000
Eurovision Song Contest 2000
60.
Eurovision Song Contest 2001
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2001 was the 46th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the Olsen Brothers win at the 2000 contest in Stockholm, the hosting marked only the second time the contest was held on Danish soil, after the 1964 contest -37 years earlier. 23 countries took part in the contest, which was held on 12 May 2001, the host venue was the Parken Stadium - the largest venue to ever host the contest. A total of 35,000 spectators saw the live from within the stadium. The presenters were Danish journalist and TV-show presenter Natasja Crone Back, france, Greece and Slovenia were the heavy favourites to win the contest, however, as the voting progressed it became a two-horse race between Estonia and the host country Denmark. The contest was won by Estonia, represented by Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL with the song Everybody, the host nation, Denmark, finished in 2nd place with 177 points - beaten by 21 points. Coming 3rd were Greece with 147 points - giving the country their best result up till this point, france came 4th with 142 points, and in 5th place were Sweden with 100 points. Dave Benton, who was born and raised in Aruba, was the first black person and, at the age of 50 years and 101 days, Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark was the host city for the 46th edition of Eurovision. The venue choice for the contest was Parken Stadium, a stadium in the Indre Østerbro district of Copenhagen, Denmark. The logo of the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest was made out of four circles, the four circles were also present in the stage design, with the light construction was made of the same four rings. The Danish national broadcaster faced some problems whilst organising the contest such as the lack of funds, the event was eventually located in the football stadium Parken, after the company running the stadium agreed to add a retractable roof to the building. Changes occurred in the process for the 2002 Contest, along with the Big 4 countries. The other spots for 2002 would be filled by countries that were excluded from the 2001 contest because of their low point average for the years 1996–2000, the Danes were so offended that the BBC was obliged to issue an apology on Wogans comments. Controversy also surrounded the Swedish song, Listen To Your Heartbeat, eventually the EBU decided for the matter to be settled in court, with the song allowed to compete as long as the courts did not declare the song as plagiarism. During the voting the Danish band Aqua performed with a medley of their singles, Although enjoyable, people complained about it being a little bit rude as there was some swearing during the performance, both at the beginning and end of Barbie Girl. This brought the number of participating countries to twenty-three. Tanel Padar was a backing vocalist for Ines in 2000, the majority of participating countries held a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 points. This year the EBU introduced for the first time a mix of voting systems for those countries that didnt want to use 100% televoting, only three votes were allowed per household
Eurovision Song Contest 2001
–
Parken Stadium, Copenhagen
Eurovision Song Contest 2001
Eurovision Song Contest 2001
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Copenhagen 2001
61.
Eurovision Song Contest 2002
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2002 was the 47th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Tallinn, Estonia, following Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XLs win at the 2001 contest in Copenhagen, for the first time, a slogan was implemented. This years theme was called A Modern Fairytale, which was evident in the postcards aired between the songs, which showed classic fairytales ending in modern Estonian situations, the final took place on the 25 May 2002 at the Saku Suurhall. Opening the show were the champions, Tanel Padar and Dave Benton. The contest was won by Latvia, represented by Marie N with the song I Wanna, the United Kingdom and host country Estonia shared 3rd place with 111 points each, while France finished in 5th place with 104 points. Despite being one of the favourites to win the contest, Denmark finished last with just 7 points and had to sit out of the years contest. Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia and it is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland,80 km south of Helsinki in Finland, east of Stockholm in Sweden, and west of Saint Petersburg in Russia. Founded in 1248 but the earliest human settlements back to 3000 years BC. Due to its important strategic location the city became a major trade hub. Tallinns Old Town is one of the best preserved and intact medieval cities in Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Saku Suurhall was chosen as the venue for the contest. It is the largest arena in Estonia, built in 2001 and it is named after the Estonian brewery and soft drink company Saku. These countries replaced the bottom 6 countries from the 2001 contest, portugal declined to enter the Contest due to internal problems in the Portuguese broadcaster RTP. Controversy erupted during the competition over remarks by commentators on Swedish and Belgian TV, the song received zero points from the Swedish audience but earned two from the Belgians, finishing 12th overall. In the televoting household shall not be permitted to vote more than three times and this year saw allegations that the juries in use were guilty of swapping votes between each other. Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final, For the first time, founded by Christer Björkman and Richard Herrey, the awards are named after the creator of the annual competition, Marcel Bezençon. The awards are divided into 3 categories, Press Award, Artistic Award, as had been the case every year since the mid-1980s, the contest was broadcast in Australia on SBS-TV with the BBC commentary. Within a few years, the contest would grow to be so popular in Australia, Serbia and Montenegro After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia last participated in 1992. Radio Television of Serbia broadcast the show, originally, first time as Serbia and Montenegro had planned debuts, but the EBUs late changes to the relegation procedure meant that they could not compete
Eurovision Song Contest 2002
–
Laura Voutilainen, Winner of Fan Award
Eurovision Song Contest 2002
Eurovision Song Contest 2002
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Tallinn 2002
Eurovision Song Contest 2002
–
An alternative cover showing the title as Eurovision Song Contest: Estonia 2002.
62.
Slovenia
–
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana, additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a river network, a rich aquifer system. Over half of the territory is covered by forest, the human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven. Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of South Slavic, Germanic, Romance, although the population is not homogeneous, the majority is Slovene. Slovene is the language throughout the country. Slovenia is a largely secularized country, but its culture and identity have been influenced by Catholicism as well as Lutheranism. The economy of Slovenia is small, open, and export-oriented and has strongly influenced by international conditions. It has been hurt by the Eurozone crisis, started in the late 2000s. The main economic field is services, followed by industry and construction, Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, in December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, and Hungary, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, in June 1991, after the introduction of multi-party representative democracy, Slovenia split from Yugoslavia and became an independent country. Present-day Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of habitation from around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ±700 BP, in the 1920s and 1930s, artifacts belonging to the Cro-Magnon such as pierced bones, bone points, and needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave. It shows that wooden wheels appeared almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe, in the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, in the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC
Slovenia
–
A pierced cave bear bone, possibly flute, from Divje Babe
Slovenia
–
Flag
Slovenia
–
Roman Emona 's south wall (reconstruction) in present-day Ljubljana
Slovenia
–
Prince's Stone, symbol of duchy of Carantania
63.
Serbia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
–
Radio Television of Serbia a member organisation of the European Broadcasting Union are responsible for the selection process of their entrants. Serbia used the national selection format broadcasting a show entitled Izbor za dečju pesmu Evrovizije for their participation at the contests between 2006 and 2010. In 2007 they were represented by Nevena Božović, who went onto to represent Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 as part of her band, Serbias best result came in 2007 and 2010 when they finished in third place at both contests. There have only been three absences from the Junior Contest in 2011,2012, and 2013, as of Junior Eurovision 2016, Serbia have awarded the most points to Russia, and received the most points from Macedonia. Serbia were the first of the two nations to compete at a Junior Contest, making their debut at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2006, while it was at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014 when Montenegro would make their debut as an independent nation. Neustrašivi učitelji stranih jezika went on to being Serbias first participant in 2006 as an independent nation with the song Učimo strane jezike, Serbia continued to participate at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007, in which they had selected Nevena Božović to represent Serbia with the song Piši mi. On 25 July 2014, Serbia announced its return to the 2014 contest, Serbia selected their 2014 entry through an internal selection for the first time in their history. On 1 October 2014 it was revealed that Emilija Đonin would represent Serbia in the contest with the song Svet u mojim očima, on 20 August 2015, Serbia confirmed its participation. On 14 September 2016, Serbia confirmed its participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Valletta, Malta, table key 1st place 2nd place 3rd place Last place Notes 1. ^ Contains phrases in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese. The contests are broadcast online worldwide through the official Junior Eurovision Song Contest website junioreurovision. tv, in 2015, the online broadcasts featured commentary in English by junioreurovision. tv editor Luke Fisher and 2011 Bulgarian Junior Eurovision Song Contest entrant Ivan Ivanov. The Serbian broadcaster, RTS, sent their own commentators to each contest in order to provide commentary in the Serbian language, spokespersons were also chosen by the national broadcaster in order to announce the awarding points from Serbia. The table below list the details of each commentator and spokesperson since 2006, Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest – Senior version of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Serbia in the Eurovision Young Musicians – A competition organised by the EBU for musicians aged 18 years, Serbia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Official EBU Page
Serbia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
64.
List of host cities of the Eurovision Song Contest
–
This page is a list of cities and venues that have hosted the Eurovision Song Contest, one or more times. Future venues are shown in italics, since 1958, the host city has customarily been in the winner country of the previous year. There have been exceptions, however, when certain issues have prevented the winner to host the years contest. The host country then passed to the country that had come second, such events occurred in 1960,1963,1972,1974 and 1980. With 6 contests, Dublin is the city that has hosted the most contests and it is followed by London and Luxembourg, and Copenhagen and Stockholm. Host City Insignia is a trophy awarded to cities hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. The symbol is a key ring to which the Eurovision Song Contest Host Cities can attach their city key or other symbol representing the city. Additionally, there is a fob with a picture of the Helsinki Senate Square attached to the key ring, the idea of the rotating trophy was proposed jointly by the City of Helsinki, the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and EBU in connection with the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest. Hand-engraved on the ring are the texts, Eurovision Song Contest Host City, all Host Cities up until the year 2006. The concept and fob were designed by the ANTEEKSI Team and the ring by jewellery designer Taru Tonder, List of host cities of the ABU Song Festivals List of host cities of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest City of Helsinki news at 13.09
List of host cities of the Eurovision Song Contest
–
BBC Television Centre in London hosted the 1963 Contest.
List of host cities of the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Host cities of Eurovision Song Contest in Europe
List of host cities of the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The Scandinavium in Gothenburg: venue for the 1985 Contest.
List of host cities of the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The film studios at Cinecittà in Rome played host to the 1991 Contest.
65.
List of Eurovision Song Contest winners
–
Sixty-four songs have won the Eurovision Song Contest, an annual competition organised by member countries of the European Broadcasting Union. The contest, which has been broadcast every year since its debut in 1956, is one of the television programmes in the world. The contests winner has been determined using numerous voting techniques throughout its history, the country awarded the most points is declared the winner. The first Eurovision Song Contest was not won on points, but by votes, there have been 60 contests, with one winner each year except the tied 1969 contest, which had four. Twenty-six different countries have won the contest, switzerland won the first contest in 1956. The country with the highest number of wins is Ireland, with seven, portugal is the country with the longest history in the contest without a win, it made its forty-eighth appearance at the 2015 contest. The only person to have won more than once as performer is Irelands Johnny Logan, Logan is also one of only five songwriters to have written more than one winning entry. This unique distinction makes Logan the only person to have three Eurovision victories to his/her credit, as singer, songwriter or both. The other four songwriters with more than one winning entry to their credit are, Willy van Hemert, Yves Dessca, Rolf Løvland, however, throughout the history of the contest, relatively few of these artists have gone on to be huge international stars. ABBA went on to be one of the most successful bands of its time, three countries have won twice in a row, Spain, Luxembourg and Israel. Along with Switzerlands win in the first contest, Serbia is the other country to win with its debut entry, though Serbia had competed prior as part of Yugoslavia and Serbia. Under the voting system used between 1975 and 2015, the winner of the contest was decided by the final voting nation on eleven occasions. Changes to the system, including a steady growth in the number of countries participating/voting. Ukraines Jamala holds the record of the highest number of points in the contests history, Norways Alexander Rybak holds the largest margin of victory in absolute points, a 169-point cushion over second place in 2009. Italys Gigliola Cinquetti holds the record for largest victory by percentage, under the voting system used from 1975 until 2015, the lowest winning score was Norways Bobbysocks. 123 points earned when winning Eurovision 1985, while the lowest winning total ever is the 18 points scored by each of the four winning countries in 1969. 2011 winner Azerbaijan Eldar & Nigar, hold the lowest average score for a song under that system. The United Kingdom has finished second fifteen times at Eurovision, more than any other country, the most successful country never to have won the Contest is Malta, having finished second in 2002 and 2005 and third in 1992 and 1998
List of Eurovision Song Contest winners
–
Left: Lys Assia, the first Eurovision winner (1956), and Dima Bilan, winner in 2008. Centre: Johnny Logan, the winning artist in 1980, winning artist and composer in 1987 and the winning composer in 1992. Right: Ell & Nikki celebrating Eurovision Song Contest 2011 victory in Düsseldorf.
List of Eurovision Song Contest winners
List of Eurovision Song Contest winners
List of Eurovision Song Contest winners
–
Lys Assia, winner of the 1956 contest.
66.
Eurovision Song Contest 1956
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1956 was the debut edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held at the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, Switzerland on Thursday 24 May. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union, the music competition was inspired by the Italian Sanremo Music Festival. Lohengrin Filipello hosted the first contest which lasted approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, seven countries participated, with each of them performing two songs. Two jury members from all participating countries cast their votes in secret, from that meeting, the concept of the Eurovision Song Contest was born. A decision was reached to hold the first ever contest in the Swiss resort of Lugano the following year, the chosen venue for the contest was the Teatro Kursaal in Lugano, a city in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy. The event was inspired by the Italian music festival, as well as that the contest was hosted in Italian. The programme lasted approximately one hour and 40 minutes, although it was mainly a radio programme, there were cameras in the studio for the benefit of the few Europeans who possessed a television. The interval act, whistling by the Joyeux Rossignols, had to be extended due to a delay in the voting procedure and it had been strongly recommended that each participating country have a preliminary national song contest. Two jury members from all participating countries travelled to Lugano to cast their vote on the songs in secret, the voting system at this Contest allowed juries to vote for any competing song, including those of their own country. Additionally, the Swiss jury was allowed by the EBU to vote also on behalf of the Luxembourg delegation, some even think that the Swiss entry won because of this rule. It is one of two contests to not have survived completely, along with the 1964 contest. Seven countries participated in the first ever contest, each were represented with two songs, two more countries, Austria, and Denmark were also expected to take part in the contest, but they missed the submission deadline and therefore could not take part. Each performance had a maestro who conducted the orchestra, the conductors listed conducted both performances for the indicated countries. Simon Barclays book The Complete and Independent Guide to the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 includes a table with what appears to be the rankings, under the chart he writes that the votes awarded have never been disclosed. According to writer Jan Feddersen, Im Wartesaal zum großen Glück was probably voted No.2 behind Lys Assia, the participating national broadcasters sent commentators to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station that they represented are shown in the table below. Official website Listen to the whole 1956 contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1956
67.
Eurovision Song Contest 1958
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1958 was the third Eurovision Song Contest. The event was held on Wednesday 12 March 1958 at AVRO Studios, the winner was France with the song Dors, mon amour, performed by André Claveau, written by Pierre Delanoë and composed by Hubert Giraud. As in 1956, it is the only contest that has not featured a song in the English language. The 1958 contest continued with the policy implemented the year before where each country was limited to one song entry and this policy has been retained to date. Hilversum, a municipality and a town in the province of North Holland, is known as the Media Capital of the Netherlands, one such media network was the host of the event, Nederlandse Televisie Stichting. The contest was held in one of Avro studios halls, the background of the stage had an images-board to show behind each singer, to contextually feat each songs lyrics. The center-front of the stage before the performers, and the area from the stage with the orchestra and stairs entrance, were decorated with tulips. The juries were not in the studio as in 1956, for the 1958 event, they remained in their own countries, listening to the event. Once the songs had all been sung, juries announced their results via telephone in order of presentation. The Italian entry was not picked up properly in some of the other countries and it was the only year that the host country finished in last place until 2015, and the first time more than one country was placed last. The interval act was music by the Metropole Orkest, under the direction of maestro Dolf van der Linden, there were two interval acts, one in the middle of the competing songs performances and one after all the rest of the competing performances were shown. Sweden, a country that would later be one of the most successful in the contest, the United Kingdom decided to withdraw from the contest after initially planning to submit an entry. After the contest, the Italian entry Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu by Domenico Modugno went on to become a worldwide hit. During the 1st Grammy Awards, held on 4 May 1959 at Hollywoods Beverly Hilton Hotel, Nel blu dipinto di blu received two awards, for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The song is the only recording to achieve this honour. The song also managed to reach the No.1 spot in the US-American Billboard Charts, the song was also voted the second best Eurovision entry of all time at the 50th anniversary show Congratulations in 2005. Each performance had a conductor who maestro the orchestra, each country had 10 jury members who each decided the best song and each awarded 1 point. The table below shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1958 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country
Eurovision Song Contest 1958
–
AVRO Studios, Hilversum. Host venue of the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1958
68.
Eurovision Song Contest 1960
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 1960 was the fifth edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on Tuesday 29 March 1960 in London, although the Netherlands had won the contest in 1959, the Netherlands Television Foundation declined to host another contest so soon after staging the event in 1958. The honour of hosting the contest therefore passed to the United Kingdom, therefore, the BBC chose Catherine Boyle to be the mistress of ceremonies at the contest for the first time. Frances win this year was their second in the contest, the contest was won by France with the song Tom Pillibi, performed by Jacqueline Boyer. The 1960 Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in London, the Royal Festival Hall, the venue for the 1960 contest, is a 2, 900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, the result was a win for France, however Germany, Monaco and the UK led in the early stages of voting. The UK came second with 25 points, four more points than the song in 1959. Interest in the contest started to grow across Europe, with the number of participating nations increasing to 13 this year, norway made its debut with one of their leading jazz singers. Luxembourg returned to the contest after a break with a song in native Luxembourgish language. The Netherlands were mistakenly announced as Holland, each country had 10 jury members who each awarded 1 point to their favourite song. The table above shows the order in which votes were cast during the 1960 contest along with the spokesperson who was responsible for announcing the votes for their respective country. Each national broadcaster sent a commentator to the contest, in order to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language. Details of the commentators and the station for which they represented are also included in the table below. ^ The song was performed in Norwegian, but the title of the song is in the North Sami dialect of the Sami languages, translating as the expression Hey Hey
Eurovision Song Contest 1960
–
Royal Festival Hall, London. Host venue of the 1960 Eurovision Song Contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1960
69.
Eurovision Song Contest 2003
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place in Riga, Latvia on 24 May 2003 and it was the first win and hosting of the competition for Latvia with only their third participation after debuting at the 2000 contest. Latvijas Televīzija chose the Skonto Hall as the venue after conducting a bidding process among several cities and venues in Latvia. The hosts for the contest were the years winner Marie N and former Latvian representative at the 2000 contest, Renārs Kaupers. The design of the contest was built around the theme Magical rendez-vous, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia and Switzerland were required to withdraw due to their poor results in the 2002 contest. This was the first win for Turkey at the Eurovision Song Contest, Norway and Sweden rounded out of the top five, placing fourth and fifth respectively. The United Kingdom achieved their worst result to date, coming in last place, the 2003 contest was the last contest to take place on one evening. This was also the last contest in which a system was used to determine which countries would participate in the following years contest. On 22 August 2002, Latvian public broadcaster Latvijas Televīzija announced that it had chosen the Skonto Hall in Riga as the host venue for the 2003 contest. Latvia won the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 on 25 May 2002 in Tallinn and this was Latvia’s first victory in the contest, which also carried the right for LTV to organise the 2003 contest. LTV initially had concerns with staging the contest. Rubenis elaborated that LTV was prepared to cover the side and broadcasting of the contest. The Government of Latvia allotted €5.3 million for the event with a further €1.1 million being provided by the Riga City Council – covering the anticipated organisational costs for the contest. Three cities were considered as host city of the contest, Riga, Ventspils, LTV requested proposals from the three cities concerning how they plan to organise the contest. Riga City Council offered the Mežaparks Open-air Stage, Skonto Hall, Jūrmala City Council offered the Dzintari Concert Hall with plans to expand and upgrade the facility and surrounding infrastructure. LTV’s organisational task force decided to proceed with the bids from Riga and Ventspils, eliminating Jūrmala. LTV ultimately chose the Skonto Hall as the venue to stage the contest, the rules also modified the eligibility criteria for entries, changing the date of release cut-off point for songs from 1 January 2003 to 1 October 2002. The draw for running order was held on 29 November 2002 in Riga, hosted by Marie N and Renārs Kaupers, the official sponsors for the contest were Latvian mobile telecom provider Latvijas Mobilais Telefons and Latvian bank company Parex Banka
Eurovision Song Contest 2003
–
Skonto Hall, Riga; venue of the 2003 contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2003
Eurovision Song Contest 2003
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Riga 2003
70.
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was the 54th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and was hosted by Russia after their win in 2008. It took place between 12 and 16 May 2009 at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, Russia, third place went to Azerbaijan, fourth to Turkey, and the United Kingdom taking 5th, seeing their best placing since 2002. Forty-two countries participated in the contest, Slovakia announced that it would return to the contest, Latvia and Georgia originally announced their intention to withdraw, but it was later stated by the European Broadcasting Union that both countries would indeed participate. However, Georgia later decided to withdraw after the EBU rejected its selected song as being a breach of contest rules, the contest was held in Russia following its victory in the 2008 contest in Belgrade, Serbia, with Dima Bilans Believe. Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia, stated that the contest would be held in Moscow and it was proposed by Channel One that the contest be held in Moscows Olympic Indoor Arena, and this proposal was evaluated by the European Broadcasting Union and confirmed on 13 September 2008. The Director-General of the venue, Vladimir Churilin, refuted rumours of emergency reconstruction of the building, saying and we now can take up to 25 thousand spectators. The contest final took place on 16 May 2009 at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, thirty-seven countries participated in one of the two semi-finals of the contest, with the Big Four countries and the host pre-qualified for the final. In addition to those pre-qualified, the final included the ten selected countries from each semi-final. However, it was confirmed that the Big Four countries would continue to qualify for the final at the 2009 contest. Host broadcaster Channel One presented the sub-logo and theme for the 2009 contest on 30 January 2009, the sub-logo is based upon a Fantasy Bird, which can be used with many colours. As in previous years, the sub-logo was presented alongside the generic logo,2009 was the first year since 2001 that there was no slogan for the contest. The stage was designed by New York-based set designer John Casey, Casey, who had previously designed the stage for the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 in Dublin, was also involved in design teams for the 1994 and 1995 contests. He explained that even before worked with the Russians on the TEFI Awards in Moscow in 1998, was inspired by and drawn to art from the Russian Avant Garde period, especially the constructivists. Tried to come up with a design for the contest that incorporates Russian avant-garde art into a contemporary setting. Casey explained that together, the various LED shapes form the finished product, furthermore, large sections of the stage can move, including the circular central portion of curved LED screens, which can be moved to effect and allow each song to have a different feel. Finally a phrase in transliterated Russian and its English translation were shown, the music accompanying the postcards was written and produced by Matthew Herbert. On Friday 30 January 2009, the draw to decide which countries would appear in either the first or second semi-final took place, the participating countries excluding the automatic finalists were split into six pots, based upon how those countries have been voting. From these pots, half competed in the first Semi Final on 10 May 2009, the other half in that particular pot will compete in the second Semi Final on 12 May 2009
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
–
The venue of the contest, Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
–
The stage of the contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2009
–
Alexander Rybak after winning the final.
71.
Eurovision Song Contest 2010
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2010 was the 55th annual Eurovision Song Contest, broadcast from the Telenor Arena in Bærum, Greater Oslo, Norway. Norway gained the rights to host the contest after achieving a record breaking victory in Moscow the previous year and it was the third time Norway had hosted the contest, having previously done so in 1986 and 1996. The 2010 winner was Germany with Lena singing Satellite, written by American Julie Frost and it was Germanys first win in twenty-eight years, its second since the Contests inception, and its first win as a unified country. It was also the first time a Big Four country won the contest since the introduction in 2000. The semi-finals took place on 25 and 27 May 2010 while the final was scheduled for 29 May 2010, the European Broadcasting Union announced that the voting system used in the semi-finals would change from previous years to balance jury voting with televoting. A return of accompaniment by orchestra was also proposed, but did not happen, thirty-nine countries took part in the contest, with Georgia returning after a one-year hiatus, and Andorra, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Montenegro withdrawing. Lithuania originally announced its withdrawal from the competition, but was later among the 39 participants confirmed by the EBU and this represents a larger budget than that allotted in the 2007 Contest in Helsinki, but is not as much as the budget in Moscow for 2009. The revised estimated cost for the now stands at 211 million kroner. At a press conference in Oslo on 27 May 2009, it was announced that the show was to be held in the Oslo metropolitan area, NRK argued that Oslo was the only city with the required capacity, venues, and infrastructure to hold the show. On 3 July 2009, it was decided that the venue would be the newly constructed Telenor Arena, the Oslo Spektrum was ruled out to host the contest due to its smaller size and capacity as was Valhall in Oslo and the Hamar Vikingskipet. The theme art, a series of intersecting circles, was selected to represent gathering people, in addition to the base colour of white, the logo was created in black, gold, and pink. A preview of the design was released on 6 May 2010, featuring no LED screens. The basic synopsis of the postcards is a group of little golden balls forms the shape of each country. Then, they move and form a screen where we can see a video of a little crowd from in a city of the country about to perform supporting and cheering their act. After that, a few seconds of the performer of the country getting ready in the stage are shown, and then, NRK announced the hosts of the contest on 10 March 2010. Those chosen were Erik Solbakken, Haddy Jatou Njie, and Nadia Hasnaoui, Solbakken and Njie opened the three shows, introduced the artists, and reported from the green room during the voting, with Hasnaoui presenting the voting section and scoreboard announcements. This was the time that more than two hosts were presenting the shows, after the 1999 Contest. This replaces the semi-final format used in the 2008 and 2009 contests in which the countries with the top nine highest points from the results in each semi-final qualified for the final
Eurovision Song Contest 2010
–
Screenshot from the rehearsals where the design can be seen
Eurovision Song Contest 2010
Eurovision Song Contest 2010
–
Telenor Arena, 28 May 2010
Eurovision Song Contest 2010
–
Lena performing the winning entry, " Satellite," for Germany.
72.
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following Ell & Nikkis win at the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, the contest was held at the newly constructed Baku Crystal Hall, with semi-finals held on 22 and 24 May 2012, followed by the final held on 26 May 2012. The contest was won by singer Loreen from Sweden with the song Euphoria—written by Thomas G, son and Peter Boström, russia finished in second place, with Serbia finishing in third. They were followed by the host country, Azerbaijan, which reached the 4th place, albania finished 5th, achieving its first top 5 placing. Germany, Italy and Spain were the three members of the Big Five that managed to rank within the top 10, finishing in 8th, 9th and 10th places respectively. Azerbaijan got the right to host the 2012 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest after winning the previous 2011 edition with the song Running Scared performed by Ell & Nikki. Shortly after Azerbaijans victory at the 2011 edition, officials announced that a new 23,000 seat concert venue was to be built near National Flag Square in Baku, as a potential venue for the event. Three days later, other options were revealed by organisers, such as the 37, 000-seat Tofiq Bahramov Stadium. On 2 August 2011, Alpine Bau Deutschland AG was awarded the contract to construct the Baku Crystal Hall, preparations for construction began in the area shortly after the announcement. Even though the full cost of the contract was not named, on 8 September 2011, Azad Azerbaijan TV reported that Baku Crystal Hall would be the venue of the contest, but no formal confirmation was made at the time by the EBU. On 25 January 2012, it was confirmed that the Baku Crystal Hall would be the venue of the contest, even though the venue had an extended capacity of 23,000 people, only 16,000 people were able to attend each show. Tickets for the contest became available online for purchase on 28 February 2012, the results format of each show remained the same with each countrys votes being decided on a 50,50 split between televoting and a national jury. Each participating country had their own jury, which consisted of five professional members of the music industry. Under the official released on 24 November 2011, the number of participants in the final was raised to 26, including the host nation, the Big Five. This was the time in the Eurovision Song Contest that 26 countries were in the final. The draw that determined the semi-final running order was held on 25 January 2012 at the Buta Palace, the participating countries, excluding the automatic finalists, were split into six pots, based upon how those countries voted in past contests. From these pots, half competed in the first semi-final on 22 May 2012, the other half in that particular pot competed in the second semi-final on 24 May 2012. 1. ^ Armenia withdrew approximately a month and a half after the allocation draw
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
–
Presenters of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, from left to right – Leyla Aliyeva, Eldar Gasimov and Nargiz Birk-Petersen
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
–
Semi-final allocation draw ceremony at the Buta Palace in Baku.
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
–
Inside of Baku Crystal Hall.
73.
Eurovision Song Contest 2016
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, Sweden, following Swedens victory at the 2015 in Vienna with the song Heroes and this was the third time the contest had taken place in Stockholm, after 1975 and 2000, the latter also being held at the Globe. The contest consisted of two semi-finals on 10 and 12 May and the final on 14 May 2016, with all three live shows hosted by Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede, the winner of the contest was Ukraine with the song 1944, performed by Jamala. This was Ukraines second win and its first since 2004 and it was also the first song with lyrics in Crimean Tatar to win or enter the contest. Forty-two countries participated in the contest, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine returned after absences from recent contests, while Australia also returned after debuting as a special guest in 2015. Twenty-six countries competed in the final, which was the first to be broadcast on television in the United States. In the final, Australia finished second, improving on its debut in 2015, while Bulgaria finished fourth, its best result since its debut, Justin Timberlake performed during the interval act of the final. A record-breaking 204 million viewers watched the contest, beating the 2015 viewing figures by over 5 million. The contest took place in the Ericsson Globe in Stockholm, following Swedens victory at the 2015 contest in Vienna with the song Heroes, performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. The Ericsson Globe has a capacity of approximately 16,000 attendees, host broadcaster Sveriges Television announced on 24 May, the day after winning the 2015 contest, that the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm was their first choice venue. However, other cities and arenas were invited to apply, a press centre with a specific size had to be made available at the venue. A specific number of hotels and hotel rooms had to be available in the vicinity of the venue. The host city had to be near a major airport, an announcement regarding the venue was expected from SVT by midsummer, with the Ericsson Globe announced as the venue on 8 July. These were subject to change depending on SVT, but were confirmed when Stockholm was announced as the host city. Discussions were held in 2014 between the EBU and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union regarding the inclusion of a guest performance from the ABU TV Song Festival at the contest. The EBU confirmed on 16 July 2015 that they are looking into the possibility of the proposal, however, the EBU published the public rules of the contest on 28 October, which stated that the start time would remain at 21,00 CEST. The core team for the contest was announced by SVT and the EBU on 26 October, johan Bernhagen and Martin Österdahl were Executive Producers, while Tobias Åberg was Head of Production. The three live shows were directed by Sven Stojanović and the contest was produced by Christer Björkman, the EBU announced on 18 February 2016 that a new voting system would be implemented at the contest for the first time since 1975
Eurovision Song Contest 2016
–
The Ericsson Globe, Stockholm; venue of the 2016 contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2016
74.
List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Fifty-two countries have participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since it started in 1956. Of these, twenty-five have won the contest, the contest, organised by the European Broadcasting Union, is held annually between members of the Union. Broadcasters from different countries submit songs to the event, and cast votes to determine the most popular in the competition, participation in the contest is primarily open to all active member broadcasters of the EBU. To be a member, broadcasters must be a member of the European Broadcasting Union. Eligibility to participate is not determined by geographic inclusion within the continent of Europe, two of the countries that have previously sought to enter the competition, Lebanon and Tunisia, in Western Asia and North Africa respectively, are also outside of Europe. The Gulf state of Qatar, in Western Asia, announced in 2009 its interest in joining the contest in time for the 2011 edition, however, this did not materialise, and there are no known plans for a future Qatari entry the Eurovision Song Contest. Australia, where the contest has been broadcast since the 1970s, debuted as a participant in the 2015 edition, the number of countries participating each year has grown steadily, from seven in 1956 to over twenty in the late 1980s. A record 43 countries participated in 2008 and 2011, as the number of contestants has risen, preliminary competitions and relegation have been introduced, to ensure that as many countries as possible get the chance to compete. In 1993, a show, Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, was held to select three Eastern European countries to compete for the first time at the main Contest. After the 1993 Contest, a rule was introduced, the six lowest-placed countries in the contest would not compete the following year. In 1996, a new system was introduced, audio tapes of all twenty-nine entrants were submitted to national juries. The twenty-two highest-placed songs after the juries voted reached the contest, norway, as host country, was given a bye to the final. From 1997 to 2001 a system was used whereby the countries with the lowest average scores over the five years were relegated. Countries could not be relegated for more one year. Between 2001 and 2003, the system used in 1994 and 1995 was used. In 2004, a semi-final was introduced, the ten highest-placed countries in the previous years Contest qualified for the final, along with the Big Four, the largest financial contributors to the EBU. All other countries entered the semi-final, ten countries qualified from the semi, leaving a final of twenty-four. In 2008, two semi-finals were held with all countries, except the host country and the Big Four, participating in one of the semi-finals
List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Dan Ar Braz represented France in 1996, performing in the Breton language
List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
1950s
List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Jari Sillanpää represented Finland in the first Eurovision semi-final in 2004, failing to qualify.
List of countries in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Magdi Rúzsa, born in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, represented Hungary in 2007.
75.
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The Czech Republic has competed at the Eurovision Song Contest five times, first taking part in 2007. On their first four attempts the country failed to qualify to the final from the semi-finals, in 2016, the Czech Republic got its first qualification to the final in their Eurovision history, leaving Andorra as the only country to have never performed in the final. After receiving nul points at the 2009 Contest and a lack of interest from the Czech public, five years later ČT announced their return to the contest in 2015, with an internal selection being used to select their fourth Eurovision entry. During the time of Czechoslovakia, Československá televize is known to have broadcast a number of editions of the Contest in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s and 1970s. After the dissolution of the state in 1993 the Czech Republics partner Slovakia immediately attempted to enter the Contest, Czech broadcaster Česká televize had originally planned to send an entry to the 2005 Contest, held in Kiev, Ukraine. However, this did not materialise for various reasons, ČT again looked at sending an entry to the 2006 Contest in Athens, Greece, but failed to do so after having doubts that the country would qualify for the final. In April 2006 ČT officially confirmed their presence at the 2007 Contest in Helsinki, ČT held a national final to select the first Czech entry. Eurosong 2007 featured 10 songs, with the voting for the winner through SMS voting. However one song was withdrawn before the show began, leaving only 9 songs to compete, the winner was rock band Kabát with the song Malá dáma. At the contests semi-final on 10 May 2007 the Czech Republic performed 16th in the semi-final, for the 2008 Contest in Belgrade, Serbia, ČT again held a national final to select the entry for the country. 10 acts again competed for the chance to represent the Czech Republic in Serbia, despite placing in the bottom two twice, ČT confirmed that they would participate at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. ČT decided to hold a selection for the artist who would represent the country at the contest in Russia. The broadcaster chose Romani band Gipsy. cz in January 2009 to compete in Moscow – the band had previously competed in the two national finals, coming both times in the top three. Two songs were presented to the Czech public to vote on, Aven Romale, after voting had concluded after 14 days, the final winner was Aven Romale, which featured lead singer Radoslav Banga dressing-up as a super-hero character, Super Gypsy. The group performed 2nd on the night of the first semi-final of the contest, however the group managed to receive nul points from the 20 countries voting in the semi-final, becoming the 16th entry to achieve this result since the current voting method was introduced in 1975. On 22 July 2009 ČT officially announced their withdrawal from the 2010 Contest, stating a lack of interest from the Czech public to the contest, the song however failed to qualify from the semi-final. However it did give the Czech Republic their best score and placed 13th with 33 points, on 31 August 2015, ČT announced that it would participate in the 2016 edition, in-which they qualified to final for the first time in Czech Republics Eurovision history. The placement in the final was 25 out of 26 countries, the televoting gave Czech Republic zero points and the juries 41 points
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Kabát performing " Malá dáma " at Helsinki
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Tereza Kerndlová performing " Have Some Fun " at Belgrade
76.
Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Denmark has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 45 times since its debut in 1957. Having competed in ten consecutive contests until 1966, Denmark was absent for eleven consecutive contests from 1967-1977, since 1978, they have been absent from only four contests. Denmark has won the contest three times, the Danish qualifying competition for the contest is the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler placed third at the countrys first attempt in 1957, Denmark then won the contest for the first time in 1963 with the song Dansevise performed by Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann. The country would not return to the top five for over twenty years, Hot Eyes then finished third in 1988, as did Birthe Kjær in 1989. In the 1990s, due to performances in the previous years. They did make the top ten three times, with Aud Wilkens fifth place in 1995 being Denmarks only top five result of the decade, the second Danish victory came in 2000, with the Olsen Brothers defying the odds to win with Fly on the Wings of Love. In 2001, as hosts, Denmark finished second with Never Ever Let You Go performed by Rollo & King, in 2002, Malene Mortensen became the first Danish entry to finish last. Denmark were absent from the 2003 contest, in 2005, Copenhagen hosted Congratulations,50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, an event to commemorate the 50th anniversary. Denmark achieved its best result for nine years at the 2010 contest, a Friend in London then finished fifth in 2011. Denmark won the contest for the time in 2013, with Only Teardrops performed by Emmelie de Forest receiving Denmarks highest ever score with 281 points. Denmark has placed in the top five a total of 14 times and has a score of 65.261 points. Denmark first participated at the Eurovision Song Contest 1957, held in Frankfurt, the country had intended to compete at the first contest in 1956, but had submitted its application past the deadline and was, therefore, not allowed to compete. Denmark was the first Nordic country to take part in the contest, with Sweden, Norway, iceland, however, did not take part until 1986. Denmarks first participants were Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler, who sang the song Skibet skal sejle i nat and their performance was controversial as, at the end of the song, the couple performed an 11-second kiss, which caused outcry in some countries. Nevertheless, the performance achieved a respectable 3rd place, Denmark won the contest for the first time in 1963, when Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann sang Dansevise. When Norway announced its votes, the presenter Katie Boyle could not hear the spokesperson, the final result was valid and the victory went to Denmark. Accordingly, in 1964, the contest was held in Denmark for the first time, after the 1966 contest and a record low 14th place, Denmark withdrew from the contest, as DR´s new head of entertainment Niels Jørgen Kaiser did not view the contest as being quality entertainment
Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler in Frankfurt (1957)
Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Denmark
Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann (1963)
Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
DQ at Helsinki (2007)
77.
Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Georgia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest nine times, debuting at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007. On 27 October 2006, Georgia, confirmed that they wished to debut at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, at the contest, Georgia managed to progress from the semi-final, but only came 12th in the final. Georgia appeared for its time in the contest for 2008. It had slightly better luck than in 2007, progressing from the semi-final, due to the 2008 South Ossetia war, it had been debated by Georgian Public Broadcaster whether Georgia would be present at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow. GPB chairman stated that it would not be unreasonable to withdraw, after winning the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2008, and getting the maximum 12 points from Russia they were encouraged to participate again in 2009. After a national final was held on 18 February 2009 the selected entry for Georgia was decided to be Stefane & 3G with their 70s-inspired song We Dont Wanna Put In. However the song gained controversy due to the lyrics of the song, which included perceived political references to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, which GPB denied. Nevertheless, the EBU banned the song from competing due to its lyrics, GPB claimed that the EBUs rejection of the song was due to political pressure exerted by Russia, and withdrew again from the contest on 11 March. Georgia returned to the Contest in 2010, after a one-year gap, Sopho sang the song Shine at the Contest, written by Hanne Sørvaag, Harry Sommerdahl and Christian Leuzzi. Georgia competed in the second semi-final of the contest on 27 May, performing in the 16th slot, Georgia came 9th in the final, with 136 points, achieving their best place so far. In 2011, Georgia sent the rock band Eldrine to the contest in Düsseldorf and they managed to equal Sopho Nizharadzes 9th place of the year before. In 2012, Georgia sent Anri Jokhadze to the contest in Baku, Azerbaijan with the song Im a Joker, on 24 May 2012, he became the first Georgian representative to fail to reach the Eurovision Song Contest final. In 2013, Georgia selected its entry internally, Sopho Gelovani & Nodiko Tatishvili was the first duo to represent Georgia in Eurovision. The song was produced by 2012s winning composer Thomas G, Son, in the second semi-final Georgia qualified in 10th, and in the final Georgia came in 15th place with 50 points. In 2014, Georgia selected jazz fusion band The Shin alongside vocalist Mariko Ebralidze to the contest in Copenhagen and their song, Three Minutes to Earth, was panned by critics and placed last in the second semi-final. This is the worst Georgian result to date, in 2015, Georgia held a national final for the first time since 2012. Nina Sublatti and her song Warrior were chosen to represent Georgia in the contest and it qualified from the first semi-final. Nina Sublatti eventually reached an 11th place in the grand final, on December 15,2015, Georgia internally selected Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz to represent Georgia in the 2016 contest They finished 9th in semi-final and 20th in the grand final
Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Diana Gurtskaya at Belgrade (2008)
Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Eldrine at Düsseldorf (2011)
Georgia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Sopho Gelovani & Nodiko Tatishvili at Malmö (2013)
78.
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Hungary has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 14 times since making its debut in 1994. Hungary attempted to participate in 1993 but failed to qualify from a qualifying competition set up for seven former eastern bloc countries. Hungarys first contest in 1994 remains its most successful, with Friderika Bayer finishing in fourth place, Hungary would not return to the top ten for 13 years, until Magdi Rúzsa finished ninth in 2007. This was followed in 2014 by András Kállay-Saunders, who gave Hungary its fourth top ten placement and best result since 1994, when he finished fifth. The countrys first entry would have been Andrea Szuláks in 1993 but a round was installed just for former Eastern Bloc countries. The first real participation was of Friderika Bayer in 1994, after three rounds of voting the Hungarian entry had taken the top marks each time and was in contention to win. However, as the competition progressed it attracted fewer votes, though it ended up in a credible fourth place. This made Hungary the only debuting nation to lead the voting, the 1995 entry was not as successful, garnering only 3 points, narrowly beating last placed Germany. In 1996 Hungary suffered another qualification lost when Gjon Delhusas song didnt make it through the pre-qualification round, Hungary began a hiatus from the competition after the 1998 contest, returning in 2005 when they reached a 12th place in the final with NOX. Hungary however announced not to again in 2006, although it returned to the contest in 2007 with Magdi Rúzsa. She came 9th in Helsinki with her song Unsubstantial Blues, the first Hungarian entry in English, after coming last in the semi-final in the 2008 contest, Magyar Televízió, the Hungarian broadcaster, confirmed Hungarys participation at the 2009 contest in Russia. Ádok eventually finished 15th in the second semi-final, failing to qualify Hungary to the final for the second time. On 27 December 2010, it was confirmed that MTV had agreed to return to the 2011 edition, on 22 May 2011, MTV confirmed their 2012 participation. In 2013, Hungary made it to the Top 10, when ByeAlex reached the 10th place with Kedvesem. They achieved even more success in 2014, when András Kállay-Saunders reached the 5th place with his song Running, achieving the best result Hungary has had since their first participation in 1994. Hungary is one of two countries to have unsuccessfully attempted to participate in both 1993 and 1996. The official Eurovision site does not count either year in Hungarys list of appearances, as of 2016, Hungarys voting history is as follows, Composer Award Points to and from Hungary eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Magdi Rúzsa at Helsinki (2007)
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Hungary
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Csézy at Belgrade (2008)
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Kati Wolf at Düsseldorf (2011)
79.
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The countrys best result is two second-place finishes, with Selma in 1999 and Yohanna in 2009. As of 2016, Iceland is the only Northern European country that has yet to win the Eurovision Song Contest, with the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Iceland automatically qualified for the final that year thanks to Birgittas 8th place the previous year. In 2008, Iceland reached the final for the first time since then, since the two semi-final system was introduced in 2008, Iceland has qualified for the final in seven straight contests, however, it failed to qualify for the final in 2015 and in 2016. Despite these mixed fortunes, Iceland is the second most successful country never to win the contest, sigríður Beinteinsdóttir has participated four times. Hera Björk has participated four times, stefán Hilmarsson has participated twice, as have Selma Björnsdóttir, Eiríkur Hauksson, Jón Jósep Snæbjörnsson and Gréta Salóme Stefánsdóttir. The Icelandic broadcaster for the contest is Ríkisútvarpið, table key NOTE, If a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition, back in 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the finals the following year. If, for example, Germany and France placed inside the top ten, as of 2016, Icelands voting history is as follows, Iceland has broadcast the show since 1970. The first to be broadcast live was the 1983 edition after the plan to broadcast the 1982 contest failed, since 1985, RÚV has broadcast the contest on the radio using same commentator for TV and radio and the Internet broadcast since early 2000s. Points to and from Iceland eurovisioncovers. co. uk Iceland 2011 Tirydou Finales Nationales
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Eiríkur Hauksson at Helsinki (2007)
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Iceland
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Euroband at Belgrade (2008)
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Eythor Ingi at Malmö (2013)
80.
Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ireland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 50 times since making its debut at the 1965 Contest in Naples. Since then, they have missed only two contests, in 1983 in Munich and 2002 in Tallinn, Ireland is the most successful country in the contest, with a total of seven wins. Raidió Teilifís Éireann is Irelands representative broadcaster at the contest, the semi-finals are broadcast on RTÉ Two, All of the Irish entries have been performed in English with the exception of the 1972 entry, Ceol an Ghrá, which was sung in Irish. Sean Dunphy finished second at the 1967 contest, behind Sandie Shaw, before Dana gave Ireland its first victory in 1970, the countrys next best result of the 1970s was in 1977, when The Swarbriggs plus two finished third. Johnny Logan gave Ireland a second victory in 1980, with Whats Another Year, Logan then wrote the 1984 entry Terminal 3, which finished second, performed by Linda Martin. In 1987, Logan became the first and only performer to win the contest twice, Irelands most successful decade to date in the contest is the 1990s, which began with Liam Reilly finishing joint second in 1990. Ireland then achieved a three consecutive victories in the contest. In 1992,1984 runner-up Linda Martin returned to win with another Johnny Logan composition and this was followed up by Niamh Kavanaghs victory over Sonia in 1993 with In Your Eyes and Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan winning in 1994 with Rock n Roll Kids. The decade saw yet another victory in 1996 when Eimear Quinn won with The Voice, Ireland also finished second in 1997 with Marc Roberts. In the 21st century, Ireland has fared well, only reaching the top 10 on three occasions, with Eamonn Toal sixth in 2000, Brian Kennedy tenth in 2006 and Jedward eighth in 2011. Ireland finished last in the final for the first time in 2007, since the introduction of the semi-final round in 2004, Ireland has failed to reach the final six times, in 2005,2008,2009,2014,2015 and 2016. 2016 marked the first time that Ireland failed to qualify in three consecutive years, Ireland has competed in the Contest almost continuously since the countrys debut in 1965. In 1983 a strike at the national broadcaster RTÉ meant that the station lacked the resources to send a participant so RTÉ broadcast the Contest with the BBC commentary feed. In 2002 Ireland was relegated from the Contest, in keeping with the EBU rules, RTÉ broadcast that years event as they intended to return in 2003, and a TV commentator was sent to the host city, Tallinn. Ireland has sent 50 entries to the Eurovision Song Contest, of these seven have won, Ireland has been relegated once, in 2001 Gary OShaughnessy finished twenty-first with Without Your Love. In addition, six Irish entries have featured in the semi-final of the Contest, in 2005, Donna & Joe finished fourteenth in the pre-qualifier, failing to qualify for the final. In 2006, Brian Kennedy finished ninth in the semi-final, ensuring an Irish presence in the Athens final, Kennedy finished tenth in the final. Ireland also featured in the first semi-final in 2008 and in the second semi-final in 2009, Irelands recent results in the Contest have been poor in comparison to the 1990s, coming last in 2007 and 2013
Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Butch Moore at Naples (1965)
Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ireland
Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Dana at Amsterdam (1970)
Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Red Hurley At The Hague (1976)
81.
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Malta has never won the contest, although it has twice finished second and twice finished third. Maltas two seconds and two thirds, make it the most successful country not to win the contest, in the last 10 contests, Malta has only once reached the top 10, when Gianluca Bezzina finished eighth in 2013. Together with France, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the only use of the Maltese language was three lines in the 2000 entry Desire, performed by Claudette Pace. The Maltese broadcasters of the show are the Public Broadcasting Services, all shows are transmitted live on TVM and Radio Malta. Also, along with Croatia and Sweden it was the country to never be relegated, under the previous rules of the contest. If a country had won the year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition, back in 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the finals the following year. If, for example, Germany and France placed inside the top ten, ^ Spain originally gave its 12 points to Israel and 10 to Norway. After the broadcast it was announced that Spanish broadcaster wrongly tallied the votes and Germany should have got the top mark -12 points - instead of being snubbed, the mistake was corrected and so Germany was placed 7th over Norway
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Julie and Ludwig at Istanbul (2004)
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Olivia Lewis at Helsinki (2007)
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Morena at Belgrade (2008)
82.
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Moldova has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 12 times, debuting in 2005. The debut year remains the countrys most successful result, with Zdob şi Zdub finishing sixth, the countrys only other top ten result was in 2007, when Natalia Barbu finished tenth. Moldova has reached the final eight out of twelve times, failing to get through in 2008,2014,2015 and 2016. Following the poor result in the 2006 contest, the Moldovan broadcaster, Teleradio-Moldova announced that it would withdraw from participation, however, in response to public pressure TRM filed the preliminary documents to compete and sent Natalia Barbu with song Fight. In 2008 Moldova, for the first time in 4 years of participating, failed to make the Final, their number, A Century of Love. In 2010 a saxophonist Sergey Stepanov from group SunStroke Project and Olia Tira has become internet phenomenon because of his 30-second saxophone solo, in 2011 Zdob şi Zdub represented Moldova for a second time in the contest, with the song So Lucky placing 12th in the final. This was the time that Moldova ended up 10th in the semifinal. In 2012, Pasha Parfeny represented Moldova, with the song Lăutar, placing 5th in the Semi Final, table key NOTE, If a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. The other reason being that back in 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the finals the following year. If, for example, Germany and France placed inside the top ten, as of 2016, Moldovas voting history is as follows, Moldova in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Moldova-Gagauzia in the Türkvizyon Song Contest Points to and from Moldova eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Natalia Gordienko and Arsenium performing " Loca " at Athens (2006)
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Moldova
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Natalia Barbu performing " Fight " at Helsinki (2007)
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Geta Burlacu performing " A Century of Love " at Belgrade (2008)
83.
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The Netherlands has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 57 times since making its debut as one of the seven countries competing in the very first contest in 1956. It has missed only four contests so far, the preselection process was often done through the Nationaal Songfestival, with the winner qualifying to represent the Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest. The Netherlands has won the contest four times, with four victories, the Netherlands ranks in the top 10 most successful Eurovision countries. The countrys first two came in the 1950s, with Corry Brokken in 1957 and Teddy Scholten in 1959. Sandra & Andres finished fourth in 1972 and Mouth & MacNeal were third in 1974, the Netherlands best result of the 1980s was fifth, achieved by both Maggie MacNeal in 1980 and Marcha in 1987. In the 1990s, Ruth Jacott, with sixth place in 1993 and Edsilia Rombley, with fourth in 1998, the Netherlands have finished last in the contest final on four occasions, in 1958,1962,1963 and 1968. They also finished last in the semi-final in 2011, since the semi-finals were introduced in 2004, the Netherlands has reached the final on only four occasions, failing to reach the final for eight years in a row, from 2005–2012. Opting for a selection has fared well for the Netherlands since 2013, when Anouk became the first Dutch entry in nine years to qualify for the final. In 2016, the Netherlands once again qualified for the final, the Netherlands has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest four times, in 1958,1970,1976 and 1980. The first three times were after winning the year, while the 1980 contest was staged in the Netherlands. Similarly, the Netherlands had declined the right to organise the 1960 contest, the Netherlands has missed only four contests in its Eurovision history. The first of these was at the 1985 contest, held in Gothenburg, the contest, held on 4 May conflicted with the Dutch Remembrance of the Dead and as such the Netherlands withdrew. In 1991 the contest was held on 4 May. There was no Dutch participation in the 1995 and 2002 contests, the Netherlands did compete in 2000. But at 22,00 on Saturday 13 May, the broadcast was cancelled because of the Enschede fireworks disaster which happened a few hours before. The points awarded by the Netherlands were taken from the jury vote. Table key NOTE, The full results for the first contest are unknown, the official Eurovision site lists all the other songs as being placed second. Willem van Beusekom provided NOS TV commentary every year from 1987 until 2005, however, on November 7,2005 it was announced that Van Beusekom would quit his role as Dutch commentator saying Its good to step back
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Conny Vandenbos at Naples (1965)
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Netherlands
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Edsilia Rombley at Helsinki (2007)
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Hind at Belgrade (2008)
84.
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Poland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 19 times since its debut in 1994. Although Poland did not become a member of the European Broadcasting Union until 1993, earlier contests had often been broadcast on Telewizja Polska, Polands debut in the contest in 1994 remains its most successful entry, with Edyta Górniak finishing second. The country reached the top ten for the time with Ich Troje finishing seventh in 2003. Poland failed to qualify from the semi-finals in six out of seven years between 2005 and 2011, before withdrawing from the contest in 2012 and 2013. Since returning in 2014, Poland has qualified for the final for three years, achieving a third top ten finish in 2016, with Michał Szpak finishing eighth. The first ever performance by Poland was at the 1994 contest, Edyta Górniaks song was also by far the most successful for Poland to date, receiving 166 points, subsequent Polish entries were less successful, placing between 11th and 20th. Poland did not compete in 2002, for the 2003 contest Poland organized its first public selection for Eurovision entry, It was no surprise when the group Ich Troje won the public vote ahead of Blue Café, finishing 7th in the final. Blue Café finished 17th in 2004 with Love Song, Polands only appearance in the final between 2005 and 2013, was in 2008. Even then, its song placed a lowly 24th, in 2005 TVP went back to an internal selection, picking Czarna dziewczyna, a multilingual song performed in Polish and Russian. The song just missed out on a place in the final, coming 11th in the semi-final, with the comeback of the public vote on TVP, Ich Troje were chosen again in 2006, but could not repeat their 7th place from 2003. Polands 2007 entry, Time To Party, sung by The Jet Set, members of the Polish OGAE have said at their annual convention that they would like Edyta Górniak to represent Poland for a second time. For years it was unknown if Górniak would enter Eurovision again, until when in 2016 she made an attempt at representing her country in the contest. In December 2011, it was announced that Poland would not compete at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, the Polish broadcaster stated that having to organize the European Football Championship 2012 was a major factor in their withdrawal. TVP informed esctoday. com that their decision to abstain does not hamper their chances of being back in 2013, however, Poland confirmed on 22 November 2012, that it will not be participating in 2013. TVP, the Polish national broadcaster has confirmed on 5 December 2013 that Poland will return to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2014, on 25 February, it was announced that Donatan and Cleo would represent Poland with their song My Słowianie. The song qualified for the final which is only the second time Poland has qualified for the final, Donatan and Cleo performed 9th in the final and ended up placing 14th overall, achieving Polands best result at the contest since 2003. In 2015 TVP selected Monika Kuszyńska and her song In The Name Of Love internally as well. She was the first ever Eurovision participant to sit in a wheelchair during her performance and she qualified for the final placing 8th out of 17 and came 23rd of 27 in the final receiving ten points
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The Jet Set at Helsinki (2007)
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Poland
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Isis Gee at Belgrade (2008)
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Marcin Mroziński at Bærum, Oslo (2010)
85.
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Romania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times, debuting in the 1994 contest. With a total of five top 10 placements, their best results have been third in 2005 with Luminița Anghel & Sistem, fourth in 2006 with Mihai Trăistariu, and third in 2010 with Paula Seling & Ovi. This in turn disqualified their 2016 entry, Moment of Silence sung by Ovidiu Anton, however, it is now officially resolved and they are returning to Eurovision in 2017. In 1994 Romania debuted in Ireland by sending Dan Bittman as the countrys first contestant with the song Dincolo de nori, by failing to receive a high place in the final, Romania was not allowed to participate in 1995, and had to wait until 1996. In 1996 Romania selected Monica Anghel and Sincron for the contest in Oslo, Norway, because of the low results in the previous years, Romania did not enter for the 1997 contest. In 2000 Romania again returned to the contest held in Stockholm, Sweden, the band did not succeed to get a high place, so yet again Romania would have to miss the 2001 contest held in Denmark. They did manage to bring the first „12 points” for the country, after missing the 2001 contest, Romania returned to the contest held in Tallinn, Estonia in 2002. The country finally received their first top 10 place since their debut, Romania ended on 9th place with 71 points, of which 12 from two countries, Macedonia and Russia. The success from last year continued, witnessing Romania reach another top 10 place in Riga, Nicola and her song Dont Break My Heart. The song was on the 10th place by receiving a total of 73 points, once again, they received 12 points from Russia. In 2004, Romania sent Sanda to compete for the country with the song I Admit, yet they received ten points from Spain. Romania was on 1st place in the semi-final with 235 points, more points than those received by winning Greece in the final. Up to date, Romanias best result is third. They got twelve points from Moldova and Spain solely, but received at least one point from every voting nation that year but the Netherlands, yet they received a couplet of twelve points among others. The song wasnt a failure, as it won the Marcel Bezençon composer award and it received points from Moldova. Gheorghe only took top points from Moldova, which awarded her 12 points, Spain, which usually gave Romania their twelve points only rewarded them with seven points. They got the twelve points from Moldova,10 points from Spain, Portugal, Israel, Norway and Sweden and eight points from the United Kingdom, Denmark. During the National Selection, an act was held after the midnight passed. Niamh Kavanagh, Chiara Siracusa, Paula Seling and Ovi sang together Happy New Year, the winner was the band Hotel FM with the song Change
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Todomondo at Helsinki (2007)
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Romania
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Nico & Vlad at Belgrade (2008)
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Mandinga at Baku (2012)
86.
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Russia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 20 times since their debut in 1994 and has participated every year since 2000. Russia is the country that has never missed the final since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004. Their debut was in the 1994 contest after Russia became a member of the European Broadcasting Union, in 2003,2007 and 2016 Russia placed 3rd, with t. A. T. u. According to unconfirmed information, Russia was required to submit Tatyana Ovsiyenko with the song My Sun, since the introduction of the semi-finals, Russia is the only country that has never missed a final. Russia won their first Eurovision Song Contest in 2008, when Dima Bilan, participating for the time in the contest, won with the song Believe. Russia was the most successful country in Eurovision in 2000-2009, with one win, however, in 2010 they finished 11th, and in 2011 they were 16th, which was the worst place for Russia since 1995. Interest in the fell, but in 2012 Buranovskiye Babushki finished in second place. Since 2008, there is an alternation on broadcast and selection, with Russia-1 on even years, ^ In 1996 Russia failed to qualify from the audio only pre-qualification round. The official Eurovision site does not count 1996 in Russias total list of appearances, ^ Russia was forced to sit out another year in 1999, as the EBU only allows countries which had broadcast the previous years contest to enter the next years contest. If a country won the year, they did not have to compete in Semi Finals. In addition, back in 2005-2007, countries who done well did not have to compete in Semi Finals the following year. co. uk
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Serebro at Helsinki (2007)
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Russia
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Dima Bilan at Belgrade (2008)
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Anastasiya Prikhodko at Moscow (2009)
87.
San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
San Marino has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 7 times, debuting in the 2008 contest, followed by participation in 2011,2012 and 2013. Having failed to qualify in their first four attempts, San Marino qualified for the Eurovision final for the first time in 2014, five months later, the broadcaster confirmed their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade. The first Sammarinese entry in the Eurovision Song Contest was Miodio, San Marino holds the honour of being the 50th country to participate at Eurovision, participating 5th in the first semi-final of the contest. However, Miodio failed to qualify for the final, receiving just 5 points in total, despite this, the winner of the 2008 contest, Dima Bilan, concluded his Winners Tour in San Marino. SMRTV had originally planned to compete at the 2009 contest in Moscow, the Sammarinese Minister of Culture announced shortly after the 2008 contest that they have good hopes to return. SMRTV announced that it would be reviewing the 2008 contest, in the end, SMRTV announced its withdrawal from the 2009 contest, having already applied to enter. The broadcaster insisted that this was not due to the results of the previous year. San Marino did not return for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, the broadcaster announced that it hoped to return to the competition in the future and discussed possible participation in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. SMRTV made an application to participate in the 2011 contest, which was later confirmed and it was the second participation in the ESC for San Marino. The singer Senit was announced as the Sammarinese entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 and she sang Stand By, performed in English. As in 2008, SMRTV broadcast the full event, for the second time, San Marino failed to qualify for the final, coming sixteenth out of nineteen countries, with 34 points. On 17 January, it was confirmed by the EBU that San Marino will be participating in the 2012 edition, SMRTV confirmed on 14 March, that Valentina Monetta would represent San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in May. She was internally selected by SMRTV, facebook Uh, Oh, Oh was presented as the Sanmarinese entry. However, it was announced that the songs lyric breached rule 1.2.2. g of the competition, the lyric and the title of the song were changed shortly afterwards to The Social Network Song. Monetta performed the song during the first semi-final, but failed to advance to the final, San Marino confirmed in November 2012 that they would participate in the 2013 contest. Artist Lys Assia had been rumoured to represent the country with her song All in your head which failed to make the final of Switzerland. Instead, at a conference in January 2013, Valentina Monetta was revealed as the choice to represent San Marino at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. She performed the song Crisalide in the second semi-final on 16 May in Malmö, for the fourth time, San Marino failed to qualify for the final, despite being, unlike previous year, a fans favourite
San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Miodio performing " Complice " at Belgrade
San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest
San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Valentina Monetta performing Maybe in 2014 at Copenhagen
88.
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Spain has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 56 times since making its debut in 1961, where they finished ninth. Spain has competed in the contest continuously since the debut in 1961. The only country with a run of uninterrupted Eurovision appearances is the United Kingdom. The 1969 contest in Madrid is the only time Spain has hosted the event, since lots were drawn after 1969s four way tie and the 1970 contest was hosted by the Netherlands. Spain has also finished second in the contest four times, with Karina in 1971, Mocedades in 1973, Betty Missiego in 1979 and Anabel Conde in 1995, and third in 1984 with Bravo. The country finished last with Nul points in 1962,1965 and 1983, Spain has had less success in recent years, failing to reach the top 10 in 10 of the last 12 contests. The exceptions being 10th-place finishes for Pastora Soler in 2012 and Ruth Lorenzo in 2014, Spain has regularly changed the selection process used in order to find the countrys entry for the contest, either a national final or internal selection has been held by the broadcaster at the time. Between 1977 and 1999, Spains entries were selected internally by TVE, before that, internal selections and national contests, like Pasaporte a Dublín in 1971, were alternated. From 2000, Spain has used various formats with different results. In 2000 and 2001, TVE organised a final called Eurocanción. The result in the Eurovision final was not good and for 2006, in 2007, Spains entry was decided through the Misión Eurovisión 2007 show, with a disappointing result once again. From 2008 to 2010, the Internet was the key element of the used by TVE to select the Spanish entry. In 2008, the social networking website MySpace was involved in the national final Salvemos Eurovisión, a website was created to make it possible for anyone to upload a song and proceed to a televised final if chosen by online voters or an expert jury. The result improved a little, but not much, nevertheless the interest of the Spanish audience was revived again, for 2009, MySpace was still involved in the selection process Eurovisión 2009, El retorno, although some changes were introduced in the format. The result was the worst in the 2000s, 24th place, in 2010, a similar format, Eurovisión, Destino Oslo, selected the Spanish entry, with the best result since 2004. In 2011, Internet voting was scrapped from the new selection method Destino Eurovisión, after a further disappointing result, for 2012, TVE decided to approach an established act, Pastora Soler, and organise a national final to select her song. A top ten result was achieved for the first time since 2004, in 2014, TVE decided to return to a multi-artist national final procedure, called Mira quién va a Eurovisión, five artists were invited to participate by TVE. A top ten result was achieved for the time in three years
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Conchita Bautista at Naples (1965)
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Spain
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Julio Iglesias at Amsterdam (1970)
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ramón at Istanbul (2004)
89.
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ukraine has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 13 times since making its debut in 2003, winning twice. Ukraines first victory came in 2004 with Wild Dances by Ruslana, the 2005 contest was then held in the countrys capital, Kyiv. Its second victory at the 2016 contest with the song 1944 by Jamala, Ukraine made its debut in 2003, when Oleksandr Ponomaryov finished 14th. Ukraine won the contest at the attempt in 2004, when Ruslana won with the song Wild Dances, defeating second-placed Serbia. On 19 September 2014, state broadcaster NTU announced that it would sit out the 2015 Contest because of difficulties in relation to the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. However, Ukraine broadcast the contest despite not taking part, on 23 May 2015, Ukrainian Broadcaster NTU pledged to bring Ukraine back to the contest for 2016. On 16 September 2015, it was announced that Ukraine would return to the contest in 2016, on its return to the contest in 2016, Ukraine became the first Eastern European country to win the contest twice, when Jamala won with her song 1944. Since the introduction of the round in 2004, Ukraine has never failed to qualify for the final when they have participated. The country has a score of 143 points per contest,233 if including the semi-finals. If a country had won the year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ruslana, the Ukrainian winner of the Eurovision Song Contest performing " Wild Dances " at Istanbul (2004)
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Ukraine
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Tina Karol performing " Show Me Your Love " at Athens (2006)
Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Verka Serduchka performing " Dancing Lasha Tumbai " at Helsinki (2007)
90.
Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Luxembourg has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 37 times since making their debut at the first contest in 1956. From 1956 to 1993, Luxembourg missed only one contest, in 1959, since 1994, Luxembourg has not participated in the contest. Luxembourg has won the contest a total of five times, the only countries with more victories are Sweden, with six, and Ireland, with seven. Their first victory was in 1961 when Jean-Claude Pascal won with the song Nous les amoureux, France Gall gave them their second victory in 1965 with Poupée de cire, poupée de son. Luxembourgs fifth victory was in 1983 when Corinne Hermes won with Si la vie est cadeau, since being relegated from taking part in 1994, the country withdrew from the contest indefinitely. Luxembourgs Minister of Culture, Maggy Nagel, expressed her desire for the country to return to the contest and this was later explained as a misunderstanding by the Culture Minister. A collaboration with San Marino has been proposed, but later SMRTV clarified that there have only been talks between the two countries and that the broadcaster is evaluating other proposals and it was later announced that the project would not move forward due to funding problems. In 2004, RTL were to return to Eurovision after an absence of 11 years, however, after monetary issues, Luxembourg withdrew. Strong rumours indicated that RTL would participate at the 2005 contest, however, RTL later decided against it, and said that they would never return. In 2008, RTL later reiterated their lack of interest in returning to the contest, in recent years the Luxembourg branch of OGAE has been campaigning for Luxembourg to return to the contest. However, they would have had to secure fees regarding participation, although it was rumoured that Luxembourg would return in the 2012 edition of the contest, RTL has announced that no such intentions exist at present. On 31 July 2014, RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg confirmed that Luxembourg would not be returning to the contest in 2015 and it was reported on 26 October 2014 that the countrys Minister of Culture, Maggy Nagel, expressed her desire for the country to return to the contest. This was later confirmed by Nagel to be a misunderstanding and that the country would not be returning, however, on 24 November 2014, it was announced that Mersch had failed to raise the necessary funds in time for the project to move forward. On 21 June 2016, the Petitions Committee of the Government of Luxembourg received five petitions on various matters in relation to the Grand Duchy, one of which was for Luxembourg to return to the Eurovision Song Contest. The Luxembourg Government will therefore hold a debate to discuss the proposals set out on the petition, nevertheless, RTL reiterated its intention not to participate on 22 August. Between 1956 and 1993 Luxembourg was only absent from the Contest once, however, in 1993 Luxembourg was relegated from taking part in the 1994 Contest, and has yet to return. Due to the small size and the national broadcasters penchant for internal selection, most of Luxembourgs entrants came from outside the Grand Duchy. All five of the artists from Luxembourg were foreign, four were French
Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Camillo Felgen in Luxembourg (1962)
Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Luxembourg
Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
France Gall in Naples (1965)
Luxembourg in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
David Alexandre Winter in Amsterdam (1970)
91.
Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Monaco has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 24 times since its debut in 1959. The countrys only win in the contest came in 1971 when Séverine performed Un banc, un arbre, in 1972, Monaco was expected to host the contest, but declined. Monaco is still today, the only microstate which has won the Eurovision Song Contest, Monaco finished last at its first contest in 1959 before achieving three top three results in the 1960s. Two of these were achieved by François Deguelt, who finished third in 1960, romuald also finished third in 1964. Severines victory in 1971 was the first of five top four results in eight years, the others were achieved by Romauld, Mary Christy who was third in 1976, Michèle Torr, fourth in 1977 and Caline & Olivier Toussaint who were fourth in 1978. After participating in 1979, Monaco was absent from the contest for 25 years, Monaco returned to the contest for three years from 2004 to 2006 but failed to qualify from the semi-finals. The Monegasque broadcaster then withdrew from the contest saying that regional voting patterns in the contest have effectively given Monaco no chance of qualifying for the final, Monaco participated in the contest 21 times between its debut in 1959 and 1979. Afterwards the country withdrew from the contest for financial reasons and it only returned in 2004,25 years after its last participation. It withdrew again in 2007, after failing to qualify for the final for three consecutive years, Monaco won the contest in 1971, with the song Un banc, un arbre, une rue, performed by Séverine. The Monegasque victory is rather particular in the history of Eurovision because the songwriter, the singer and the director were not from the country they represented, Séverine even declared to journalists that she had never set foot in Monaco, forgetting that the video-clip was filmed there. Séverines producer was dishonest with her and stole her prize, thus she never got paid for her victory, nevertheless, the singer is still a great fan of the contest. Monacos next best placing has been second which it has achieved once at the 1962 and it has been third three times, in 1960,1964 and 1976, and last twice, in 1959 and 1966. Monaco is among the eight countries which finished last on their first participation, the others being Austria, Portugal, Malta, Turkey, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and San Marino. After winning in 1971, the decided to organise the 1972 contest as an open-air show. However, because of a lack of funds and material, Télé Monte Carlo sought help from the French public broadcaster, ORTF, because TMC wanted the show to be held in Monaco while ORTF wanted it in France, negotiations never succeeded. Monaco left it up to the EBU, the EBU asked Spain and Germany, who respectively finished second and third at the 1971 contest, but the countries were not interested in organising the 1972 contest. It was eventually organised by the BBC in Edinburgh, Monaco was absent from the contest between 1980 and 2003, before returning for three years from 2004–2006, but Maryon, Lise Darly and Séverine Ferrer all failed to progress from the semi-finals. TMC broadcast the 2007 contest opening the way for participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, despite this, Monaco did not compete in Moscow in 2009
Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Marjorie Noël performing " Va dire à l'amour " in Naples
Monaco in the Eurovision Song Contest
92.
Morocco in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Morocco entered the Eurovision Song Contest for the first, and so far only, time at the Eurovision Song Contest 1980 with the song Bitaqat Hob, performed by Samira Bensaïd in the Arabic language. Their debut entry also marked the first time that Arabic was performed in the contest and their song for the contest was Bitaqat Khub, performed by famous Moroccan singer Samira Bensaïd. The song only received 7 points, all from Italy, and placed 18th, after their poor placing in the contest, SNRT announced that they would be withdrawing from the 1981 contest, and have never returned since. A rival Moroccan broadcaster to SNRT, 2M TV, has expressed their intention to join the European Broadcasting Union, should their application be successful, 2M TV, could potentially return Morocco to the contest. Table key As of 1980, Moroccos voting history is as follows, Points to and from Morocco eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Morocco in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Morocco
93.
Lebanon in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Lebanon has never participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. On October 21,2004, Ibrahim El Khoury, President Director General of Télé Liban, stated that Lebanon intended to make its debut at the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 in Kiev, Ukraine. On November 3,2004, it was announced that Aline Lahoud was internally selected by the network to represent Lebanon and her orient-occident song Quand tout senfuit, sung in French and written by Jad Rahbani and Romeo Lahoud, was chosen in mid-February. Lahoud was scheduled to present her song in the held on May 19,2005. On December 15,2004, Télé Liban announced that financial constraints forced them to withdraw from the contest, however, five days later, the European Broadcasting Union reached an agreement with Télé Liban and Lebanon was put on the official list of participants. In early March 2005, the official Lebanese Eurovision Song Contest website did not list Israel as a participant, later that month, the EBU asked Télé-Liban to assure that they would broadcast the entire contest, including the Israeli entry, without interruption. Télé Liban could not guarantee that request, so on March 18,2005, Lebanese legislation prohibited the broadcast of Israeli content on Lebanese television networks. Since Télé Liban withdrew almost three months after the December 15 no consequence withdrawal deadline, the broadcaster was penalized, losing its participation fee, with the three-year ban, Télé Liban was not eligible to enter the Eurovision Song Contest again until the 2009 Contest. His participation never came to be and the country has not made another attempt to join the contest following the conclusion of its broadcasters ban
Lebanon in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
The first of two official albums of the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, showing the participation of Lebanon. (bottom row, third from right)
Lebanon in the Eurovision Song Contest
94.
A Dal
–
A Dal is the national selection process in Hungary for the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest was introduced in 2012, the contest was introduced by the Médiaszolgáltatás-támogató és Vagyonkezelő Alap, the organisers of the contest, with a different philosophy on the contest used previously. A Dal was introduced to produce a Hungarian contest, with Hungarian musical tastes being presented to a European audience, the contest is also an open one, with all information of the songs being revealed in the selection process. The selected songs in the contest are shown to the Hungarian public through a number of special shows and it includes three heats, two semi-finals, and then a final. Ten songs compete in heat, with six moving on to the semi-finals. Nine songs compete in each semi-final, four songs from each semi-final move on to the final, two advancing due to the jury and two due to the public. The final winner is selected through two rounds of voting, the first round selects the top four songs out of the eight finalists, the first round uses only the jury and the second round uses only the public. The first winner of A Dal was the band Compact Disco with the song Sound of Our Hearts, at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, the group qualified to the final, and placing 24th in the final with 19 points. The most successful A Dal winner is András Kállay-Saunders and his song Running, at the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, Kállay-Saunders qualified for the final and later placed 5th with 143 points, earning Hungarys second best placement ever and only top five finish since 1994. Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
A Dal
–
A Dal
95.
Kdam Eurovision
–
The Kdam Eurovision in short known as the Kdam is the Israeli national preselection of the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was first introduced in 1981, Israel has won the Eurovision Song Contest three times. Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta in 1978 and Milk and Honey in 1979 took part in the Israel Song Festival, emerged as winners of the preselection, Dana International, the Israeli winner in 1998 was chosen in an internal selection contest and not at Kdam. That year, Israel was represented by Esther Ofarim for Switzerland, regular television broadcasts of broadcasts in Israel began in May 1968. In 1972, Ilanit and Shlomo Zach argued that the Israel Broadcasting Authority was entitled to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, IBA agreed and asked that Ilanit represent Israel at the Eurovision Song Contest in Edinburgh in 1972. But the registration period had already closed for the 1972 competition, in 1973, Ilanit won the bid to represent Israel in Luxembourg at that year’s Eurovision Song Contest, becoming the first official Israeli entry to Eurovision. A committee of the IBA was in charge of selecting the song, Ehud Manor and Nurit Hirsh wrote the chosen song, Ey Sham in Hebrew, although in that years contest, entrants did not have to sing in their national languages. Manor explained that they saw the importance of having that song represent Israel in Hebrew, Ilanit placed fourth in the first-ever Israeli entry. In 1977 Israel sent back Ilanit for a time, with Ahava Hi Shir Lishnayim. After the second Ilanit showing in 1977, the method of voting was changed, in the next two years 1978 and 1979, Israels Eurovision entrants were the winners in the Israel Song Festival. In both cases, the won the Eurovision title. The songs were A-Ba-Ni-Bi by Izhar Cohen in 1978 and Hallelujah by Milk, after winning with Hallelujah, Israel had the right to host the 25th Eurovision contest, but the Israeli budget was not large enough to host two consecutive contests. In 1981, it was decided to change the selection process competition for Israeli artists through competition under Kdam Eurovision. The first such competition was held on 3 March 1981, the band Hakol Over Habibi won the competition in 1981, for 26th Eurovision Contest in Dublin with the song Halayla. Among the prominent Kdam songs that competed were Cinderella by Sexta, Hora by Avi Toledano, the 1984 Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg was again set on Yom Hazikaron Memorial Day and Israel canceled its participation yet again. Israel had already picked the song Balalaika by singer Ilanit for the years competition, Kdam Eurovision Song Contest returned for 1985,1986 and 1987. In 1988, IBA suspended the Kdam competition as a cost-cutting measure, Yardena Arazi performed four songs with selected the song Ben Adam. Kdam returned in 1989, with Gili & Galit with Derekh Hamelekh, in 1991,1992,1993,1995 and 1996, the Kdam Eurovision competitions were held
Kdam Eurovision
–
Kdam Eurovision logo
96.
Sanremo Music Festival
–
Usually referred to as Festival di Sanremo, or outside Italy as Sanremo Music Festival or Sanremo Music Festival Award, it was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest. Starting from 1955 all the editions of the Festival have been broadcast live by the Italian TV station Rai 1. During this era of the festival, it was custom that one version of the song was performed by a native Italian artist while the version was performed by an international guest artist. The Festival airs annually in Australia on the multicultural broadcaster SBS One, in the aftermath of World War II, one of the proposals to revitalize the economy and the reputation of Sanremo was to create an annual music festival to be held in the city. Officially titled Festival della Canzone Italiana, the first edition of the show was held at the Sanremo Casino on 29,30 and 31 January 1951, the final of the competition was broadcast by Rete Rossa, the second most important RAI radio station. Twenty songs took part in the competition, performed by three artists only–Nilla Pizzi, Duo Fasano and Achille Togliani, starting from the third edition of the festival, held in 1953, each song was performed by two different artists with different orchestras and arrangements. Two years later, in 1955, the festival made its first appearance on television, the last night of the show was also broadcast in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The same rule was applied in the years contest. Between 1967 and 1971, entries were not forced to be interpreted by foreign artists, starting from 1972, each entry was sung by one artist only. The competing artists were split for the first time into Big artists, the competition had one winner only, but the entries in the Young artists category had to go through an elimination round, while Big artists were directly admitted to the final. In 1977, the Sanremo Casino, which hosted all the editions of the contest, was not available for renovations. The theater later became the location for the annual contest, hosting it every year except in 1990. In 1980, pre-recorded backing tracks replaced the orchestra, while playback performances were allowed in 1983 during the final, in 1984 and 1985, all the artists were forced to perform in playback, while live performances with the orchestra were reintroduced in 1986. During the same years, several changes were introduced in the contest. In 1982, accredited music journalists decided to create an award to recognise the best song competing in the festival, starting from 1983, the prize was officially awarded during the event. The critics prize was later entitled to Mia Martini, who was the first artist receiving it in 1982 for her entry E non finisce mica il cielo, moreover, starting from 1984, the separation between newcomers and established artists was marked introducing two different competitions with separate winners. In 1989 a third category, the Upcoming Artists Section, was introduced, only in 1998 the top three artists in the newcomers section were allowed to compete in the main competition. This led to the victory of the debuting Annalisa Minetti, which generated several controversy, the distinction among different categories was abolished again in 2004
Sanremo Music Festival
–
The Teatro Ariston in Sanremo during the last evening of the Festival in 2013
Sanremo Music Festival
–
The Sanremo Casino hosted the Sanremo Music Festival between 1951 and 1976.
Sanremo Music Festival
–
Roberto Carlos won the Sanremo Music Festival with Sergio Endrigo in 1968.
Sanremo Music Festival
–
Adriano Celentano and Claudia Mori won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1970.
97.
Supernova (Latvian TV series)
–
Supernova is a Latvian music entertainment show created by the Latvian broadcaster, LTV. It is currently used as the Latvian national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, supernova began airing in 2015, replacing the previous short-lived Latvian national selection Dziesma. Its first winner, Aminata Savadogo went on to bring Latvia to the finals for the first time since 2008, earning Latvia their best placing since 2005, supernova 2015 consisted of two introduction shows, two heats, a semi-final, and a final. The introduction shows took place on 18 and 25 January 2015, the heats on 1 and 8 February 2015, the semi-final on 15 February 2015, and the final on 22 February 2015. The season started out with twenty competitors, however, only four made it to the final, a mix of jury voting and voting from the public decided the qualifiers of the heats and semi-finals, however, only voting from the public decided the winner of the final. Supernova 2016 consisted of two shows, two heats, a semi-final, and a final. The introduction shows took place on 24 and 31 January 2016, the heats on 7 and 14 February 2016, the semi-final on 21 February 2016, the competing artists and their songs were revealed during the second introduction show. The season started out with twenty competitors, however, only four made it to the final, a mix of jury voting and voting from the public decided the qualifiers of the heats and semi-finals, however, only voting from the public decided the winner of the final. Supernova 2017 consisted of two shows, two heats, a semi-final, and a final. The introduction shows took place on 22 and 29 January 2017, the heats on 5 and 12 February 2017, the semi-final on 19 February 2017, the competing artists and their songs were revealed on 13 January 2017. The season started out with twenty-two competitors, however, only four made it to the final, a mix of jury voting and voting from the public decided the qualifiers of the heats and semi-finals, however, only voting from the public decided the winner of the final
Supernova (Latvian TV series)
–
Supernova
98.
Malta Song for Europe
–
Malta Song for Europe was the song festival which used to decide who will represent Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest. It is now being organised by Maltese broadcaster Public Broadcasting Services, Maltas participation in the Eurovision Song Contest dates back to 1971. In those years the contest was known as the Malta Song Festival, in the past the rules for submissions by composers, authors and singers were published in October. The first elimination of the songs was held in December, the semifinal was then held in February. Two days after, a final was held to choose Maltas representative at the Eurovision. In 2009 a new format of the contest was introduced, the Malta Eurosong contest, with eight semi-finals held over November 2008 to January 2009, with a final of 20 songs competing in February. In 2010 six semi-finals will be held over December 2009 and January 2010, since 2011 it became known as the Malta Eurovision Song Contest. Malta Song for Europe 2006 Malta Song for Europe 2007 Malta Song for Europe 2008 Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
Malta Song for Europe
–
PBS, the contest's organiser.
99.
EMA (Slovenia)
–
EMA is the national contest in Slovenia to select the countrys entry since 1996 to the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest has been held since the debut in the Eurovision Song Contest. The contest is organized and broadcast by the Slovene broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija, the contest was previously known as Slovenski izbor za pesem Evrovizije in 1993 and 1995. EMA has been the show for Slovene representative in the Eurovision Song Contest. Originally it was titled ‘’Slovenski Izbor za Pesem Evrovizije’’, however it was re-named into EMA in 1996, RTV SLO organized the first EMA on 25 February 1993 in RTV SLO Studios in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Ironically 1X Band was not on the participants list. However, after a disqualification of one of the original participants 1X Band was chosen to participate in the last minute, the winner was selected by 12 regional radio station juries from all over Slovenia. Each radio jury voted with Eurovision votes, due to Slovenia’s first appearance being placed in the bottom 7, Slovenia wasn’t allowed to participate in 1994. Therefore, the contest wasn’t held that year, the contest followed the 1993 format in 1995 and 1996. But in 1996, only eleven participants appeared, because of the twelfth participant’s disqualification before the contest was held, in 1997, EMA saw major changes in the format. RTV SLO chose to invite 7 songwriters to each write 2 songs for the final, and regional juries were re-placed by televoting. Both features stayed in production also in 1998, role of televoting was reduced to 1/3 of the final voting. Other than that Slovene Expert Jury and International Expert Jury voted, each voting factor, televoting, Slovene jury and International jury vote with Eurovision votes. During the show, the called the international jury as Ireland. This edition caused high controversy as the winner, Tinkara Kovač didn’t won the selection. In 2000, Slovenia was not allowed to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest due to average of results between 1995 and 1999. In 2001, EMA returned, expending over 2 nights for the first time, in the semi-final 22 participants appeared. Televoting chose six and Jury chose 6 to proceed to the final, in the final, the voting was up to Televoting, Expert Jury and RTV SLO Jury
EMA (Slovenia)
–
EMA
100.
Beovizija
–
Beovizija was a music festival established in 2003. Since 2007 it was the selection for Serbias representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. Beovizija was organised and broadcast live each year by RTS1, on RTRS in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it was held during February at Belgrades Sava Centar. The competition started in 2004 and was one of the most watched entertainment events in Serbia. In December 2009, RTS announced that it is changing the way it will select its Eurovision competitor and has thus cancelled Beovizija, therefore, the last Beovizija held was in 2009. Serbia and Montenegro were originally due to enter the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2003 since a 11-year expulsion, the expulsion was brought about the break out of wars in the former Yugoslavia under which Serbia and Montenegro participated for the last time in 1992. Unfortunately the EBU stated that too many countries wanted to enter in that year, Serbia and Montenegro was one of them. As a result, Serbia and Montenegro entered the year instead. It was decided that Beovizija would be Serbia’s semi final while Montevizija would be Montenegro’s semi final, the best from the two would compete in a united final show contest under the name Evropesma. The first Beovizija was held a year before Serbia and Montenegro entered Eurovision and was more of a night for the Serbian music industry. In 2003 and 200428 songs competed while 25 were allowed to compete in 2005 and 2006, the voting system has always been 50% jury and 50% televoting while 12,10,8,7.2,1 are awarded to songs. However the number of members has changed. From 2004 -2006 there were 8 jury members while from 2007 there have been only 3 members of the jury for both the semi-final and final night, in 2006 Serbia and Montenegro peacefully split after a referendum. Serbia became an independent country and thus Beovizija became the national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, the country was to debut for the first time independently in 2007. Marija Šerifović - Serbia’s representative won Eurovision that year, Beovizija was held over two nights in February. The semi-final consisted of 20 songs, the public’s and jury’s vote was combined to determine the 10 best songs to proceed to the final. Similarly, the winner of Beovizija was determined, the Serbian music industry awards were handed out on the final night of Beovizija. In 2008 the semi-final were to be held on February 19,2008 while the final a day later
Beovizija
–
Beovizija Беовизија
Beovizija
–
2008 Beovizija stage
Beovizija
–
Beovizija 2008 host couples; Kristina Radenković and Branislav Katić (to the left) and Nina Radulović and Đorđe Maričić (to the right)
101.
OGAE
–
OGAE is an international organisation that was founded in 1984 in Savonlinna, Finland by Jari-Pekka Koikkalainen. The organisation consists of a network of 42 Eurovision Song Contest fan clubs across Europe and beyond, and is a non-governmental, non-political, four non-profit competitions are organised independently every year to promote national popular music to Eurovision fans from around the world. The current President of the OGAE International Network is Simon Bennett from OGAE United Kingdom, although the Eurovision Song Contest began in 1956, the OGAE International Network was founded by Jari-Pekka Koikkalainen in 1984 in Savonlinna, Finland. The network is open to countries that take part in the Eurovision Song Contest or have participated in the past, every year the organisation arranges four competitions – Song Contest, Second Chance Contest, Video Contest and Home Composed Song Contest. In 2007, Antonis Karatzikos was elected as new International Coordinator for OGAE, in July 2009 he was re-elected for the same post. In 2011, OGAE International Network became an organisation in France. She was re-elected for a term on 17 May 2013 at the Euro Fan Café in Malmö. OGAE currently has members, including two in Germany. These are, Countries that do not have an OGAE Network in their own right, the countries which constitute this OGAE Network are, Notes 1. ^ Australia and Hungary are currently Candidate Members. The Marcel Bezençon Fan Award was handed out in 2002 and 2003, and voted on by the members of OGAE and it was discontinued and replaced by the Composer Award in 2004. Four nations competed in the first contest which took place in 1987, the contest was previously a non-televised event, but evolved over the years by the usage of video tape and nowadays DVD and YouTube. Each summer following the Eurovision Song Contest, each branch can enter one song that failed to win the national selection process for the annual Eurovision Song Contest. The members of each club choose amongst the songs that did not win, votes are cast by members of the OGAE clubs and are returned to the OGAE branch organising the particular years event. Guest juries have been used to cast votes since 1993, the OGAE Video Contest is a video event which, much like the OGAE Song Contest, is organised between branches of OGAE, the international fan club of the Eurovision Song Contest. All OGAE national clubs can enter with a song and video released in the previous 12 months in their countries. There is no obligation on the entry for the OGAE Video Contest to be sung in one of the official languages. So far 39 countries have represented at the contest at least once. These are listed alongside the year in which they made their debut
OGAE
–
Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision
102.
Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits
–
The concert took place on 31 March 2015 at the Eventim Apollo, in Hammersmith, London. Guy Freeman was the producer and Geoff Posner the director. Simon Proctor was the producer and David Arch was the musical director for the concert. Tickets for the event went on sale at 10am on 6 February 2015, Graham Norton and Petra Mede hosted the event, which saw fifteen acts from thirteen countries performing their Eurovision entries from yesteryear. During the televised show, video montages for some of the Eurovision Song Contest archives were shown in-between each live performance, the United Kingdom entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was performed at the concert, but never broadcast on the televised show. Riverdance performed a reprise of their 1994 Eurovision Song Contest interval act as part of the anniversary celebrations, the host broadcaster, BBC, and Raidió Teilifís Éireann, simulcast the show on Good Friday,3 April 2015. The Dutch broadcaster, AVROTROS, were the first to announce their decision to not broadcast the event, other countries also announced their decision to decline broadcasting the event, including Luxembourg, who had an act taking part in the event. Confirmation was revealed on 3 February 2015 that the event were to take place in the Eventim Apollo, in Hammersmith. The last time the United Kingdom capital held any Eurovision events was the Eurovision Dance Contest 2007, the details regarding the title of the show were unknown at the time the announcement was made. A decision is expected shortly, so stay tuned, edgar Böhm, executive producer of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest said in an interview that the BBC had been chosen to host a special anniversary show. Tickets for the concert went on sale from 10, 15am on Friday 6 February 2015 via the BBCs Eurovision website. On 3 February 2015 it was announced that Graham Norton and Petra Mede would co-host the concert show, Norton, who co-hosted the Eurovision Dance Contest with Claudia Winkleman in 2007 and 2008, and is also the current Eurovision commentator for the United Kingdom. Mede was the host for Melodifestivalen 2009, host for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, fifteen artists, representing thirteen countries, consisting of some of Eurovisions greatest hits, took part in the sixtieth anniversary gala event. The first-ever winner of the contest, Lys Assia, appeared in the audience as a guest of honour, recap montages of Eurovision entries over the last sixty years, were also broadcast in-between performances. These were as follows, Electro Velvet performed their United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 entry and this performance did not appear on the televised show, but was exclusively done for the audience members of the concert hall itself. It was confirmed on 22 March 2015 that the act for Eurovision Song Contests Greatest Hits would be Riverdance. Fifteen Eurovision acts from thirteen countries participated in the anniversary concert, although there were originally fourteen acts confirmed by the BBC, it was later announced on 5 March 2015 that Norways Bobbysocks would join the line-up increasing the total to fifteen. Video montages were shown prior to entry, showing footage for that particular years contest
Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits
–
The Eventim Apollo, London
Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits
Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits
–
Graham Norton and Petra Mede, the show's two hosts, during the show at the Eventim Apollo.
103.
Serbia and Montenegro
–
Serbia and Montenegro, officially the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, was a country in Southeast Europe, created from the two remaining republics of Yugoslavia after its breakup in 1992. The republics of Serbia and Montenegro together established a federation in 1992 as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the FRY aspired to be a sole legal successor to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but those claims were opposed by other former republics. The United Nations also denied its request to continue the membership of the former state. It re-applied for UN membership on 27 October and was admitted on 1 November 2000, the FRY was initially dominated by Slobodan Milošević as President of Serbia and then President of Yugoslavia. Milošević installed and forced the removal of several presidents and prime ministers. However, the Montenegrin government, initially enthusiastic supporters of Milošević, a loose union, Serbia and Montenegro were united only in certain realms, such as defense. The two constituent republics functioned separately throughout the period of the Federal Republic, and continued to operate under separate economic policies, on 21 May 2006, the Montenegrin independence referendum was held, and 55. 5% of voters voted in favor of independence. The state union came to an end after Montenegros formal declaration of independence on 3 June 2006, after the dissolution, Serbia became the legal successor of the union, while Montenegro re-applied for membership in international organizations. With the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe, the new state followed the wave of democratic change, Yugoslavias collapse began in 1991 when Slovenia, Croatia, and the Republic of Macedonia declared independence. On 26 December 1991, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Serb rebel-held territories in Croatia agreed that they would form a new third Yugoslavia. Zulfikarpašić believed that Bosnia could benefit from a union with Serbia, Montenegro, the FRY was suspended from a number of international institutions. This was due to the ongoing Yugoslav wars during the 1990s, the Government of Yugoslavia supported Croatian and Bosnian Serbs in the wars from 1992 to 1995. Because of that, the country was under economic and political sanctions, in this way, every Bosnian Serb was transferred from the Yugoslav army to what became the newly created Bosnian Serb Army. Through this, the Bosnian Serb army also received military equipment and full funding from the FRY. Furthermore, Serbian Radical Party founder and paramilitary Vojislav Šešelj claimed that President Milošević personally asked him to send paramilitaries into Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1995, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević represented the FRY and Bosnian Serbs at peace talks in Dayton, Ohio, US, from 1996, the first public signs of political discord between parts of Montenegrin leadership and the Serbian leadership began to appear. Milošević did not respond to the platform, considering it unconstitutional, by October 2000 Milošević had lost power in Serbia. Subsequent governments of Montenegro carried out policies, and political tensions with Serbia simmered despite political changes in Belgrade
Serbia and Montenegro
–
The Zašto? ("Why?") Monument, dedicated to the employees of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) who were killed during NATO bombing of the RTS building in 1999.
Serbia and Montenegro
–
Flag
Serbia and Montenegro
–
A Federal Republic of Yugoslavia passport
For the most recent participation see
Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest
