1.
Duna TV
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Duna is one of public television channels in Hungary. Duna is the Hungarian name for the Danube, Duna is the national main channel of the public media MTVA since 15 March 2015. Duna TV is managed and primarily funded by the Media Service Support and this government organization, formed in 2011, also manages the public service broadcasters Magyar Televízió and Magyar Rádió as well as the Hungarian news agency Magyar Távirati Iroda. On 1 July 2015, Duna TV as well as the three other public media organizations managed by the MTVA were merged into an organization called Duna Media Service. This organization is the successor to Duna TV and is an active member of the European Broadcasting Union. Duna TV went on the air in December 1992 as the first Hungarian TV station to broadcast over satellite and its mission is to create and broadcast programming for and news about Hungarian minority communities beyond Hungarys borders in order to help maintain their national/ethnic identity. A few years later, Duna TV became the first Hungarian station to broadcast 24 hours a day, in 2004, Duna TV began to broadcast in North America, South America and Australia. In 2006, Duna TV started its Channel II, Duna TV had been originally funded from a television licence fee imposed on owners of television sets. However, in July 2002, the government abolished the fee and began to fund the broadcaster through direct payments, with additional funding coming from advertising. While a decision ultimately was not made in time for Duna TV to participate, Magyar Televízió returned for the 2011 contest. Magyar Televízió and Magyar Rádió were also made a part of MTVA and this nonprofit organization is the legal successor to each of the four formerly separate entities managed by the MTVA. Éva Ciprusz Georgina Szántó Gábor Báthory Bea Lukács Miklós Borsa Official website Organizational website
Duna TV
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Duna TV
2.
A Dal
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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
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A Dal
3.
Eurovision Song Contest 1994
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The Eurovision Song Contest 1994 was the 39th Eurovision Song Contest and was held on 30 April 1994 in the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. As of 2017, it was the last time the contest was held in April, the presenters were Cynthia Ní Mhurchú and Gerry Ryan. The pair hosted the evening in French, English and Irish, once again Ireland won the contest for the third time in a row, when Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan were the winners with a song written by Brendan Graham, Rock N Roll Kids. This was a sixth victory for Ireland, giving it the outright record number of victories at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was also the first time — and to date the only time — that the contest had been won by the country in three consecutive years. The contest opened with a film of stars floating in water, fireworks and caricatures dancing around, drinking coffee. The cameras then went live to the venue itself, where dressed in white and wearing caricatured heads of well-known Irish figures. The presenters entered the stage spectacularly from a bridge which descended from the roof of the theatre and this year’s video postcards had a literary theme, showing contestants reading, fishing and doing other activities around Ireland. The floor was painted with a dark blue paint to give a watery effect. Because Italy and Luxembourg withdrew voluntarily, the bottom 5 of the 1993 Contest were relegated and this meant that Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Slovenia and Turkey did not participate this year opening spaces for the new countries. This contest also saw Luxembourg withdraw from Eurovision indefinitely, Poland took part for the first time and caused a scandal when Edyta Górniak broke the rules by singing her song in English during the dress rehearsal. Only six countries demanded that Poland should be disqualified, though the rules required 13 countries to complain before Poland could be removed from the competition. The proposed removal did not occur and Poland went on to come 2nd in the contest, for the first time in Eurovision history, voting was done via satellite instead of by telephone, and as a result, viewers could see the spokespersons onscreen. When the voting started, Hungary took the lead from the first six juries and was ahead of all the other countries. However, Ireland powered their way through the board ending up the winners with a 60-point lead over second-placed Poland. The interval act was the first ever performance of the Irish dancing spectacular Riverdance, featuring Michael Flatley, ^ Contains some words in English. Each country had a jury who awarded 12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 point for their top ten songs. With advances in technology, this was the first contest in which the spokesperson for each national jury appeared on-screen, live from their own countries
Eurovision Song Contest 1994
4.
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 was the 53rd edition of the Contest. It was hosted in Belgrade, Serbia after Marija Šerifović won the 2007 Contest in Helsinki and this year was the first time there were three contests, two semi-finals which were held on 20 and 22 May, and the traditional grand final which was held on 24 May 2008. The shows were hosted by Jovana Janković and Željko Joksimović at the Belgrade Arena which had a capacity of 25,000 seats. After a total of 272 points, Dima Bilan representing Russia was declared the winner, with the song Believe written by American Jim Beanz, so far this has been the only time Russia has won the contest. Russia came third in the semi-final, making it the winner with the worst semi-final result, ukraine were runners up for the second year running, with 3rd place going to Greece, 4th to Armenia seeing their best result so far and 5th to Norway. 2008 also saw, for the first time ever, Eurovision. tv streaming national finals live on ESCTV with broadcasters permission. On 30 January 2008, Eurovision. tv revealed the theme of the Contest, The Confluence of Sound, Serbia gained the right to host the Contest after Marija Šerifović won the 2007 Contest in Helsinki, Finland. Since Serbia was the winner of the preceding contest, the 2008 contest was held there. The Belgrade Arena was chosen as the venue for the contest, on 14 September 2007, the Mayor of Helsinki handed over the Eurovision keys to the Deputy of Belgrade. This ceremony is meant to be a tradition from the 2008 contest and onward, ukraine was considered an option since they came second in Eurovision Song Contest 2007. YLE were another option, as hosted the previous years competition in Helsinki. Greeces Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi also offered the EBU to host the contest in Athens and it was later decided that the contest would stay in Belgrade, with the EBU giving support. RTS would gain a guarantee of safety and security from the government of Serbia for all visitors, the delegations of Albania, Croatia and Israel had special security. RTS ran a competition led to the creation of the 2008 Contests branding, logo. The theme of the Contest was based around the confluence of sound and this was symbolic as Belgrade lies on the confluence of two European rivers, the Sava and Danube. The logo chosen, a treble clef, formed the basis of the design created by Boris Miljković. The postcards in the first and second semi-final were based around the creation of the flag of the nation that was to perform next, each post card had a short story related to each country and its people. During each postcard a short letter was displayed, the postcards were brought to an end by a stamp with this years Eurovision logo
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
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The
Belgrade Arena, the 2008 venue.
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
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Presenters
Željko Joksimović and
Jovana Janković during the first semi-final
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
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Eurovision Song Contest: Belgrade 2008
5.
Eurovision Song Contest 1993
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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
6.
Eastern Bloc
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The Eastern Bloc was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The terms Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a socialist island, Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a secret protocol in September 1939. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property, the international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal. In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union, from the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germanys Ostland. Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front, from 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wont try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country, Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction. In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany, after resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new primary task would be to prepare elections. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for war booty, which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, as a young communist was told in East Germany, its got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control. Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation, elimination of the bourgeoisies social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly. Crucial departments such as responsible for personnel, general police, secret police
Eastern Bloc
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The Big Three:
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill,
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Premier of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin at the
Yalta Conference, February 1945.
Eastern Bloc
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Political situation in Europe during the
Cold War
Eastern Bloc
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World War II Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk fled Poland in 1947 after facing arrest and persecution.
Eastern Bloc
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Germans watching Western supply planes at
Berlin Tempelhof Airport during the
Berlin Airlift.
7.
Eurovision Song Contest 2014
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 was the 59th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following Emmelie de Forests win at the 2013 contest in Malmö and this was the third time that Denmark hosted the contest, the most recent previous occasion being in 2001. The two semi-finals took place on 6 May and 8 May 2014, and the final on 10 May 2014, the shows were presented by Lise Rønne, Nikolaj Koppel and Pilou Asbæk. The host broadcaster, DR, chose the B&W Hallerne as the host venue after considering several bids from cities and venues across Denmark, thirty-seven countries participated, this includes the return of Poland after a two-year absence and Portugal after a one-year absence. Overall, there were two countries competing compared to the previous year, making thirty-seven participants, the smallest number since 2006. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Serbia announced their withdrawal from the 2014 Contest, San Marino and Montenegro both qualified for the final for the first time. The winner was Conchita Wurst with the song Rise Like a Phoenix, written by Charley Mason, Joey Patulka, Ali Zuckowski and this was Austrias first win in the competition since 1966. Jokes made about Wurst had sparked controversy, whilst Russia were booed several times during the contest, the Netherlands and Sweden finished second and third respectively with the former achieving their best result since their victory in the 1975 Contest. Armenia finished fourth, which equals their best result to date, while Hungary finished fifth, of the Big Five, only Ruth Lorenzo of Spain achieved a place in the top ten. A new record of 195 million viewers for the Eurovision Song Contest was reported, the host broadcaster, DR, and the EBU won the International TV Award at the Ondas Awards for their production of the contest. On 2 September 2013, Danish public broadcaster DR announced that it had chosen Copenhagen as the host city for the 2014 contest, the contest was held at the former shipyard Refshaleøen, in the B&W Hallerne, with the social networking hashtag #JoinUs as the motto. The mayor of Copenhagen, Frank Jensen, declared in late August that the city would contribute to the budget with 40 million. He also announced that the aim was to make the Eurovision 2014 into the greenest contest to date since Copenhagen had been elected European Green Capital for 2014. Five cities had been considered as host city of the contest, including Herning and Copenhagen, later, Fredericia and Aalborg entered the phase with the Messe C and Gigantium venues, respectively. The fifth city to join the phase was Horsens, with the venue being the courtyard of the former Horsens State Prison, in the event that Horsens had been chosen to host the contest, the courtyard would have been covered by a permanent glass roof. The contest was set to take place on 13,15 and 17 May 2014, however. On 17 June 2013, the municipality executive of Aalborg decided not to bid for hosting the contest due to the lack of sufficient hotel capacity. On 25 June 2013, the Municipality of Fredericia announced that the Triangle Region had withdrawn its bid on hosting the contest, DR required the hosting venue to have no pillars blocking any views and an interior height of at least 16 metres
Eurovision Song Contest 2014
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B&W Hallerne, located on Refshaleøen Island, Copenhagen
Eurovision Song Contest 2014
Eurovision Song Contest 2014
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Parken Stadium, which hosted the
2001 contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 2014
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Jyske Bank Boxen, hosted the final of
Dansk Melodi Grand Prix 2013.
8.
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was won by first-time appearance as an independent country Serbia and was held at the Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland earned the right to host the event after heavy metal band Lordis victory at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. It was the first time the Contest had been held in Finland, a budget of €13 million was presented for arranging the contest. Other bids to host the contest came from Espoo, Turku, the hosts were Finnish television personality Jaana Pelkonen and Finnish musician, stage performer and actor Mikko Leppilampi. Krisse Salminen acted as guest host in the room. A record number of 42 countries participated, the European Broadcasting Union put aside its limit of 40 countries, which would have meant excluding some countries using a ranking order scheme. This trend continued at the 2008 and 2009 Contests, on 12 March 2007, the draws for the running order for the semi-final, final and voting procedure took place. A new feature allowed five wild-card countries from the semi-final and three countries from the final to choose their starting position, the heads of delegation went on stage and chose the number they would take. In the semi-final, Austria, Andorra, Turkey, Slovenia and Latvia were able to choose their positions, in the final, Armenia, Ukraine and Germany were able to exercise this privilege. All countries opted for spots in the half of both evenings. Shortly after the draw, the entries were approved by the EBU, the United Kingdom chose their entry after the deadline because they were granted special dispensation from the EBU. The contest saw some changes to the voting time-frame. The compilation summary video of all entries including phone numbers was shown twice, the voting process was the same as 2006 except there was fifteen minutes to vote, an increase of five minutes on the 2006 Contest. In the final, the results from each country were once again shown from one to seven points automatically on screen and only eight, ten and twelve were read by the spokespeople. For the first time, the winner was awarded a promotion tour around Europe, visiting Denmark, Spain, Sweden, the tour was held between 16 May and 21 May. The event was sponsored by European communications group TeliaSonera, and — as with several previous contests — Nobel Biocare, apocalyptica were the interval act, and played a medley of songs, Worlds Collide, Faraway and finally Life Burns. The official logo of the contest remained the same as 2006, the stage was in the shape of a kantele, a traditional Finnish instrument. On 20 February 2007 a reworked official website for the contest was launched marking the first public exhibition of this years theme, an official CD and DVD were released
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
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The hosts
Jaana Pelkonen and
Mikko Leppilampi
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
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Hartwall Areena, the venue of ESC 2007
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
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Eurovision Song Contest: Helsinki 2007
9.
ByeAlex
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Alex Márta, better known by his stage name ByeAlex, is a Hungarian indie pop singer, songwriter, journalist, and novelist. He represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden, with the song Kedvesem, in 2014 his debut novel Özséb, egy öngyilkos Miskolcon was published in Hungary. He started singing at an early age and he studied in Kisvárda and Fényeslitke. He got a degree in philosophy from the University of Miskolc and he became famous when he won A Dal, the national selection competition in Hungary for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. Then he represented Hungary with the song Kedvesem, szörpoholista John the Valiant - Te vagy Hungarian indie Hungarian pop
ByeAlex
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ByeAlex with
Dániel Kővágó
10.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
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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
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Square in Malmö before the finals, with time table demonstrating the countdown for the broadcast.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
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Malmö Arena, next to Hyllie Railway Station.
Eurovision Song Contest 2013
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The stage with its movable parts and the audience closely surrounding it during the opening act of the second semi-final
11.
Eurovision Song Contest 1996
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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
12.
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
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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
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The
National Indoor Arena, which hosted the contest.
Eurovision Song Contest 1998
13.
Eurovision Song Contest 2005
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The Eurovision Song Contest 2005 was the 50th annual Eurovision Song Contest. The contest took place at the Palace of Sports in Kiev, Ukraine, the contest consisted of two shows, the semi-final and final, which took place on 19 and 21 May 2005, respectively. The shows were hosted by Maria Efrosinina and Pavlo Shylko, thirty-nine countries participated, including the débuts of Bulgaria and Moldova and the return of Hungary, which was last represented in 1998. The winner for 2005 was Greece with the song My Number One performed by Helena Paparizou, written by Christos Dantis and Natalia Germanou and it scored 230 points, beating Malta into second place by a margin of 38 points. This was the first victory for Greece at the Eurovision Song Contest, romania, Israel and Latvia rounded out the top five. The Big Four countries ended up as the Last Four, all placing in the four position of the scoreboard in the final. The official logo of the contest remained the same from the 2004 contest with the flag in the heart being changed. Following Istanbuls Under The Same Sky, the slogan for the 2005 show was Awakening, the postcards for the 2005 show illustrated Ukraine’s culture and heritage along with a more modern and industrial side to the country. The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev were television presenter Maria Masha Efrosinina, previous winner Ruslana returned to the stage in Kiev to perform in the interval act and to interview the contestants backstage in the green room. The famous Ukrainian boxers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko opened the televoting, while a special trophy was presented to the winner by Ukraines president, Viktor Yushchenko. An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was an official pin set, the EBU also commissioned a book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History by British/American author John Kennedy OConnor to celebrate the contests fiftieth anniversary. The book was presented on screen during the break between songs 12 and 13, the book was published in English, German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Finnish. During the semi final, there were a few volume falls in the sound, most notably during the Norwegian song and these were not fixed for the DVD release. 2005 was no exception for scandals regarding the representatives from the countries participating, germanys entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest rejected calls to quit after her producer admitted manipulating the countrys pop charts with mass purchases of her single. Gracia Baur defended her producer David Brandes, also behind Swiss entry Vanilla Ninja, bulgarias debut was overshadowed by a scandal. The song Lorraine by Kaffe was accused of plagiarism, the song sounded too similar to another one released by Ruslan Mainov in 2001. There were also problems in Malta with the electricity supply during the contest, there was a controversy regarding the Turkish entry, TRT got a false jury which led to the victory of the song Gülseren, which the 2003 winner Sertab Erener said was not the best choice. There were similar controversies in Macedonia which led to a victory for Martin Vučić
Eurovision Song Contest 2005
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Eurovision Song Contest: Kyiv 2005
Eurovision Song Contest 2005
Eurovision Song Contest 2005
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The first of two official albums of the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, showing the participation of
Lebanon. (bottom row, third from right)
14.
Helsinki
–
Helsinki is the capital and largest city of Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. Helsinki has a population of 629,512, a population of 1,231,595. Helsinki is located some 80 kilometres north of Tallinn, Estonia,400 km east of Stockholm, Sweden, Helsinki has close historical connections with these three cities. The Helsinki metropolitan area includes the core of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kauniainen. It is the worlds northernmost metro area of one million people. The Helsinki metropolitan area is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Nordic countries, Helsinki is Finlands major political, educational, financial, cultural, and research center as well as one of northern Europes major cities. Approximately 75% of foreign companies operating in Finland have settled in the Helsinki region, the nearby municipality of Vantaa is the location of Helsinki Airport, with frequent service to various destinations in Europe and Asia. In 2009, Helsinki was chosen to be the World Design Capital for 2012 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, the city was the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics and the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007. In 2011, the Monocle magazine ranked Helsinki the most liveable city in the world in its Liveable Cities Index 2011, in the Economist Intelligence Units August 2015 Liveability survey, assessing the best and worst cities to live in globally, Helsinki placed among the worlds top ten cities. Helsinki is used to refer to the city in most languages, the Swedish name Helsingfors is the original official name of the city. The Finnish name probably comes from Helsinga and similar names used for the river that is known as the Vantaa River. Helsingfors comes from the name of the parish, Helsinge and the rapids, which flowed through the original village. As part of the Grand Duchy of Finland in the Russian Empire, one suggestion for the origin of the name Helsinge is that it originated with medieval Swedish settlers who came from Hälsingland in Sweden. Others have proposed that the name derives from the Swedish word helsing, other Scandinavian cities located at similar geographic locations were given similar names at the time, for example Helsingør and Helsingborg. The name Helsinki has been used in Finnish official documents and in Finnish language newspapers since 1819, the decrees issued in Helsinki were dated with Helsinki as the place of issue. This is how the form Helsinki came to be used in written Finnish, in Helsinki slang the city is called Stadi. Hesa, is not used by natives to the city, helsset is the Northern Sami name of Helsinki
Helsinki
–
Clockwise from top:
Helsinki Cathedral, view of central Helsinki, Headquarters of
Sanoma, Helsinki city centre at night, beaches at
Aurinkolahti,
Parliament House and
Suomenlinna.
Helsinki
–
Coat of arms
Helsinki
–
Central Helsinki in 1820 before rebuilding. Illustration by
Carl Ludvig Engel.
Helsinki
–
Construction of
Suomenlinna began in the 18th century.
15.
Unsubstantial Blues
–
Unsubstantial Blues is a song written and performed by Magdi Rúzsa. It was also the Hungarian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, the song is written in the style of blues and is about a woman who is cheated on by a boyfriend. The lyrics to the Hungarian version were written by Rúzsa herself, the Hungarian version was released as a single from her debut album Ördögi angyal before the selection of Rúzsa as the countrys Eurovision representative. The song was translated into English by Imre Mózsik and announced as the Hungarian entry. Controversy arose after it was selected because Rúzsa sang a verse as part of her audition for the television program Megasztár which aired in February 2006. The EBU required that no portion of an entry be commercially released and/or publicly performed before October 1,2006 to be eligible for the contest, in the end the song was allowed to remain in the competition. Hungary did not participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, so the song was performed in the held in Helsinki. It was the song of the night and qualified for the final after receiving 224 points. Hungary was the country to perform in the final, held on 12 May 2007. At the close of voting it had received 128 points to finish in 9th place overall and this was Hungarys best placing since their debut in 1994 which placed 4th. It was succeeded as Hungarian representative by Candlelight performed by Csézy, hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
Unsubstantial Blues
–
Unsubstantial Blues
16.
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.
17.
Russia
–
Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
Russia
–
Kievan Rus' in the 11th century
Russia
–
Flag
Russia
–
The
Baptism of Kievans, by
Klavdy Lebedev
Russia
–
Sergius of Radonezh blessing
Dmitry Donskoy in
Trinity Sergius Lavra, before the
Battle of Kulikovo, depicted in a painting by
Ernst Lissner
18.
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.
19.
Norway
–
The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
Norway
–
The
helmet found at Gjermundbu near
Haugsbygd,
Buskerud, is the only
Viking Age helmet that has been found.
Norway
–
Flag
Norway
–
The
Gokstad ship at the
Viking Ship Museum in
Oslo, Norway
Norway
–
The
Battle of the Sound between an allied Dano-Norwegian–
Dutch fleet and the Swedish navy, 8 November 1658 (29 October
O.S.)
20.
Kedvesem
–
Kedvesem is the Hungarian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö. It was performed by singer ByeAlex, Kedvesem was first heard on ByeAlexs YouTube channel on 14 November 2012. However it was released on iTunes on 18 November 2012. The Zoohacker Remix version of the song was Hungarys entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, ByeAlex performed the song in A Dal 2013 where qualified to the final and won the competition by viewer votes. Therefore, he represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, thus, Kedvesem became one of the most successful entries so far for Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest. Digital download Kedvesem -3,24 Kedvesem -3,09 One For Me -3,24
Kedvesem
–
"Kedvesem"
21.
Hungarian Language
–
Hungarian is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary it is spoken by communities of Hungarian people in neighbouring countries. Like Finnish and Estonian, it belongs to the Uralic language family, its closest relatives being Mansi and it is one of several European languages not part of the Indo-European languages, and the most widely-spoken European language that does not belong to the Indo-European family. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar or magyar nyelv, the word Magyar is used as an English and Hungarian word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group. Hungarian is a member of the Uralic language family, the name of Hungary could be a result of regular sound changes of Ungrian/Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to Hungarians as Ǫgry/Ǫgrove seemed to confirm that. Current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onogur, there are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /aː/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, for example, Hungarian ház house vs. Khanty xot house, and Hungarian száz hundred vs. Khanty sot hundred. The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular, during the later half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian. Following an academic debate known as Az ugor-török háború, the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, foremost based on work by the German linguist Josef Budenz. The traditional view argues that the Hungarian language separated from its Ugric relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium b. c. e. in western Siberia, east of the southern Urals. The Hungarians gradually changed their lifestyle from settled hunters to nomadic pastoralists, in Hungarian, Iranian loans date back to the time immediately following the breakup of Ugric and probably span well over a millennium. Among these include tehén ‘cow’, tíz ‘ten’, tej ‘milk’, increasing archaeological evidence from present-day southern Bashkortostan found in the previous decades confirms the existence of Hungarian settlements between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. The Onogurs later had a influence on the language, especially between the 5th-9th centuries. This layer of Turkic loans is large and varied, and includes words borrowed from Oghur Turkic, e. g. borjú ‘calf’, dél ‘noon, many words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and grammar were not influenced in a dramatic way during these 300 years. After the arrival of the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin the language came into contact with different speech communities, Turkic loans from this period come mainly from the Pechenegs and Cumanians who settled in Hungary during the 12th-13th centuries, e. g. koboz ‘cobza’, komondor ‘mop dog’. Hungarian borrowed many words from especially the neighbouring Slavic languages, in exchange, these languages also borrowed words from Hungarian, e. g. Serbo-Croatian ašov from Hung ásó ‘spade’. Approximately 1. 6% of the Romanian lexicon is of Hungarian origin, on the basis of the growing genetic evidence, the accepted origin theory is contested by geneticists too
Hungarian Language
–
Hungarian keyboard
Hungarian Language
Hungarian Language
–
Funeral Sermon and Prayer, 12th century
Hungarian Language
–
A page from the first book written completely in Hungarian from 1533
22.
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
23.
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
24.
Charlie (Hungarian singer)
–
Charlie is a Hungarian rock and soul singer. In 1978, he married Katalin, with whom he has a son called Ákos, from the mid-1960s, he sang in Hungarian rock bands such as Decca and Olympia. He later joined rock band Generál, in 1989, he formed a soul act titled Tátrai Band with guitarist Tibor Tátrai. He was chosen to represent Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 in Birmingham, where he performed his song titled A holnap már nem lesz szomorú
Charlie (Hungarian singer)
–
Charlie in 2008
25.
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
26.
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
27.
Eurovision Song Contest 2006
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the 51st Eurovision Song Contest, held at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece on 18 May and 20 May 2006. The hosting national broadcaster of the contest was Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi, the Finnish band Lordi won the contest with the song Hard Rock Hallelujah, written by lead singer Mr. Lordi. Hard Rock Hallelujah was the first ever hard rock song to win the contest, since Eurovision is normally associated with pop music. This was Finlands first victory in Eurovision after waiting forty-five years and it is also noted that they scored the same amount of points in the semi-final and the grand final. In the semi-final, both the hosts sang Katrina and the Waves contest-winning Love Shine A Light, for one of the intervals, Sakis Rouvas sang an English version of his Greek hit Seho Erotefthi called Im in love with you. Helena Paparizou, who performed the song in Kiev, returned to the Eurovision stage in Athens. An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was a fan book released from this year. The 2006 contest also saw the 1, 000th song to be performed in the contest, Armenia also entered for the first time in the contest. The venue that was chosen as the host venue, was the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, the official logo of the contest remained the same from 2004 and 2005 with the countrys flag in the heart being changed. The 2006 sub-logo created by the design company Karamela for Greek television was based on the Phaistos Disc which is a popular symbol of ancient Greece. According to ERT, it was inspired by the wind and the sea, the golden sunlight, following Istanbuls Under The Same Sky and Kievs Awakening, the slogan for the 2006 show was Feel The Rhythm. This theme was also the basis for the postcards for the 2006 show, to save time in the final, the voting time lasted ten minutes and the voting process was changed, points 1-7 were shown immediately on-screen. The spokespersons only announced the countries scoring 8,10 and 12 points, constantinos Christoforou saluted from Nicosia, the last divided capital in Europe, during Cyprus reading, the telecast displayed Switzerland by mistake. This voting process has been criticized because suspense was lost by only reading three votes instead of ten, and for the first time, the display for the Macedonian entry had the title spelled out in its entirety instead of being abbreviated as it has been in previous years. Participating countries in a Eurovision Song Contest must be members of the EBU. The semi-final was held on 18 May 2006 at 21,00,23 countries performed and all 37 participants and Serbia & Montenegro voted. Shaded countries qualified for the Eurovision Final Notes 1. ^ The song also contained phrases in Spanish,2. ^ The song also contained phrases in French. The finalists were, the four automatic qualifiers France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, the top 10 countries from the 2005 final, the final was held on 20 May 2006 at 21,00 and was won by Finland
Eurovision Song Contest 2006
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Athens Olympic Indoor Hall
Eurovision Song Contest 2006
Eurovision Song Contest 2006
–
Eurovision Song Contest: Athens 2006
28.
English language
–
English /ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/ is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now the global lingua franca. Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, English is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. It is the third most common language in the world, after Mandarin. It is the most widely learned second language and a language of the United Nations, of the European Union. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch, English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the century, are called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England, Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London and the King James Bible, and the start of the Great Vowel Shift. Through the worldwide influence of the British Empire, modern English spread around the world from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, English is an Indo-European language, and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages. Most closely related to English are the Frisian languages, and English, Old Saxon and its descendent Low German languages are also closely related, and sometimes Low German, English, and Frisian are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic or North Sea Germanic languages. Modern English descends from Middle English, which in turn descends from Old English, particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other English languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy dialects of Ireland. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares new language features with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German and these shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor, which linguists call Proto-Germanic. Through Grimms law, the word for foot begins with /f/ in Germanic languages, English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic. The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon, in the fifth century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain and the Romans withdrew from Britain. England and English are named after the Angles, Old English was divided into four dialects, the Anglian dialects, Mercian and Northumbrian, and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon. Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex. The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the period of Old English were written using a runic script. By the sixth century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms and it included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩
English language
–
The opening to the Old English epic poem
Beowulf,
handwritten in
half-uncial script: Hƿæt ƿē Gārde/na ingēar dagum þēod cyninga / þrym ge frunon... "Listen! We of the Spear-Danes from days of yore have heard of the glory of the folk-kings..."
English language
–
Countries of the world where English is a majority native language
English language
–
Title page of Geoffrey Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales c.1400
29.
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2011 was the 56th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Düsseldorf, Germany, following Lenas win at the 2010 contest in Oslo and this was the first contest to take place outside of the host nations capital city since the 2004 contest in Istanbul. The event was held at the Esprit Arena, with semi-finals held on 10 and 12 May, Italy also returned to the Contest, marking its first participation since 1997. No country withdrew from the contest, the winner was Azerbaijan with the song Running Scared performed by Ell & Nikki. The runner up was Italy, and Sweden finished in third place,2010 Hosts Norway was eliminated in the first semi final. Azerbaijan obtained its first ever victory in any Eurovision since its debut in 2008, Azerbaijan won the viewers voting with Sweden in second place, and Greece in third place. Italy won the voting, with Azerbaijan in second place. This is the first time since the juries were reintroduced alongside the televoting in 2009 that the winner didnt place first in the juryvoting, the broadcast of the final won the Rose dOr award for Best Live Event. Following Lenas win at the 2010 contest with the song Satellite, twenty-three cities submit official bids to the German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk, in order to be the host city for the 2011 contest. Eight of these continued to show interest in hosting the event including Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Gelsenkirchen, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt. NDR announced on 21 August 2010 that four of those cities had officially applied to host the 2011 Contest, Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, decision makers at NDR reportedly doubted the venues ability to provide advantageous acoustic conditions. Berlins speaker Richard Meng neither confirmed nor denied that because, he stated and this message indicated that talks with Düsseldorf to host the song contest in the Esprit Arena were already at an advanced stage. The club later announced on 6 October 2010 that it had obtained permission to move its games if necessary, the Neue Ruhr Zeitung newspaper reported on 12 December 2010 that Fortuna Düsseldorf were to be moved to the Paul-Janes-Stadion due to the contest. Fortuna Düsseldorfs training venue next to the Esprit Arena would be equipped with mobile stands from a Swiss event construction specialist, Nussli Group and this decision was made because the Arena Sportpark Düsseldorf holds better logistic qualifications. The Esprit Arena in Düsseldorf was announced by German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk as the venue for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest on 12 October 2010. This was the first Eurovision Song Contest held in Germany since German reunification and that the stadium acquired a rental period of six weeks, in order to allow construction and dismantling work within the Esprit Arena to be carried out. The stadium accommodated a capacity of 38,000 for spectators during the Eurovision Song Contest, Düsseldorf offered 23,000 hotel beds and 2,000 additional beds in the Düsseldorf surroundings and on ships on the River Rhine. The four countries that were part of the Big Four, along with the host of the contest, since Germany was both a Big Four country and the host for the 2011 contest, there was a vacant spot in the final
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
–
Eurovision Song Contest 2011 "Feel Your Heart Beat!"
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
–
The
Esprit Arena, the 2011 venue
Eurovision Song Contest 2011
–
Opening act_with
Stefan Raab
30.
Kati Wolf
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Kati Wolf is a Hungarian singer and former airline purser. Wolf represented Hungary at the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song What About My Dreams, at the age of seven, Wolf sang the title track for the popular Hungarian cartoon Vuk. Besides singing, she took piano and jazz dance classes. She was previously a judge in the 2012 edition of the national final, Kati managed to get to the final, but did not qualify for the superfinal. Wolf-áramlat Az első X —10 dal az élő showból Vár a holnap Vuk dala Kati Wolf - official website
Kati Wolf
–
Kati Wolf (2011)
31.
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.
32.
Compact Disco
–
Compact Disco is a Hungarian electronic music band and musical producer trio based in Budapest, founded in 2008 by three musicians of varying musical backgrounds. The band represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Lotfi, Pál and Walkó first met in 2005, when Behnam Lotfis techno producer duo, Collins and Behnam planned to produce a cover version of Adamski and Seals Killer and was in search of a vocalist. He saw Csaba Walkó in an American Idol type talent show, Walkó that time was singing in a funk-pop band called Brownfield and asked a couple of members of this band to accompany him to the recording session. One of these members were Gábor Pál, who was also the leader and founder of the renowned Hungarian nu-jazz ensemble and this was the first time when the three musicians met. But it was not until the summer of 2008, when Lotfi pitched the idea of a band playing electronic vocal pop music to Walkó, the three had their first meeting in August 2008, and they instantly started to produce their first song. They were composing and producing songs until March 2009, by this time everything was recorded, except the vocal tracks. The band started the sessions to finalize its yet unnamed first album in April 2009, recording the vocals. They were in Gábor Némethys Groovejack Studio until July 2009, the band started to perform live in January 2010, mostly in Hungary, but also in Transylvania, Romania. Their first video for the song Im in Love gained considerable popularity, the video was shot shortly before the release of the first album in November 2009. It was produced by Hungarian independent video and commercial maker group, although Im in Loves video gained popularity over time, the Hungarian audience failed to recognize the fresh faces believing it was the work of a foreign band. Therefore, they decided on an image video picturing only the band. The session was recorded before live audience in Magyar Rádiós Studio 8 and was aired in September creating demand for more Akusztik-type shows. During the summer season, Compact Disco made an appearance at almost all major Hungarian music festivals. For these, they asked Pál and Walkós former band mate from Brownfield, bassist Attila Sándor to join the band on stage, occasionally a drummer was also performing the band in selected venues. Also in November 2010, on Red Bulls request they shot their video to their song Fly or Dive. During the year, Im in Love and its remixes entered various charts including the UK Buzz Chart, the track also topped the Hungarian dance chart, The VIVA Club Chart. On December 6,2010 the band re-released its debut album, in December 2010, the band started working on their second album, titled II. It was recorded in Compact Discos home studio, except for the vocals which was recorded again in Groovejack Studio in April 2011, the album was expected to be released on May 14,2011
Compact Disco
–
Compact Disco in
2010 from left to right: Gábor Pál, Behnam Lotfi, Attila Sándor and Csaba Walkó
Compact Disco
–
The cover of II
33.
Sound of Our Hearts
–
Sound of Our Hearts is a song by Hungarian group Compact Disco. The song represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku and it qualified from the first semi-final into the grand final where it finished 24th of 26 entrants. Back in our previous years we just made song about love and relation and some easy things, now, these days we just feel that maybe we just have to make something more serious. If you look around what is going on in the world - not just in Hungary - the situation is just going down, and it is not so good, so. Our message is that we should look after each other and we should be more close to each other. We should take care of the relationship if it is not working than everything is just going in a really bad way. - Eurovision interview with the group
Sound of Our Hearts
–
"Sound of Our Hearts"
34.
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
–
The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was the 60th anniversary edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest musical event. The contest took place in Vienna, Austria, following Austrian Conchita Wursts victory in the 2014 and this was the second time that Austria hosted the contest, the 1967 being the first. The 2015 contest consisted of two semi-finals, which place on 19 and 21 May, and a final, held on 23 May 2015. The shows were presented by Mirjam Weichselbraun, Alice Tumler and Arabella Kiesbauer while Conchita Wurst was hosting the green room, forty countries participated in the contest, with Australia making a guest appearance, and Cyprus, the Czech Republic, and Serbia returning. Ukraine, however, announced their withdrawal due to financial and political reasons around the Ukrainian crisis, once all the votes had been announced, based on 50% jury and 50% televoting, Sweden won the contest for the sixth time, with Måns Zelmerlöws song Heroes. Sweden became the first country to win the contest twice in the current format, and this was the second win in four years. Italy won the voting with Russia in second place. Sweden won the voting, with Latvia in second place. This is the first time since the juries were reintroduced alongside the televoting in 2009 that the winner didnt place first in the televoting, for the first time, the top four of the contest all scored 200 points or better. Russias entry A Million Voices became the first non-winning Eurovision song to score over 300 points, Austria and Germany became the first countries 2003 to score no points in the final. Austria is also the first host country to score nul points, the 2015 contest also saw the best ever result for Montenegro since its independence, and the Czech Republic. Also the top two countries of this contest were the same as the top two countries in the 2012, being Sweden and Russia, over 197 million viewers worldwide watched the contest, beating the 2014 viewing figures by 2 million. The Wiener Stadthalle hosts the annual Erste Bank Open tennis tournament, after Austrias victory in the 2014 Contest, their delegation revealed the possibility of hosting the contest either in the capital city, Vienna, or in Salzburg. Vienna, considered the front-runner, had two venues in the phase, Wiener Stadthalle and the trade centre, Messe Wien. Also in the race were Stadthalle Graz and Schwarzl Freizeit Zentrum, with a maximum capacity of 30,000, the Wörthersee Stadium in Klagenfurt also joined the race, however, it would require the construction of a roof for the contest to be hosted there. Innsbruck also joined the race with Olympiahalle, which hosted ice hockey, a fifth city, Linz, joined the race with Brucknerhaus, although the venue is not big enough for the contest. Being geographically close to Linz, Wels showed desire to host the event as well, oberwart, with the Exhibition hall, and Vorarlberg, with the Vorarlberger Landestheater, were the latest cities to declare an interest. On 29 May 2014, Austrian host public broadcaster ORF and the EBU released some requirements, ORF requested interested parties to respond by 13 June 2014
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
–
The venue of the contest,
Wiener Stadthalle in
Vienna
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
–
Stage design of the contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
35.
Boggie
–
Boglárka Csemer, professionally known as Boggie, is a Hungarian pop vocalist and songwriter. Boggie is best known for her hit single entitled Nouveau Parfum and she represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with the song Wars for Nothing. On 19 May 2015, her song qualified for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest final, Boggie rose to major prominence in early January 2014 after the release of the music video to her debut single Nouveau Parfum. The video was picked up by outlets in various countries including the UK. The video shows the singer being extensively retouched while she sings the song, both versions are extracted from Boglárkas self-titled debut album entitled Boggie, released in 2015. The video and its message are similar to the Body Evolution viral video created for GlobalDemocracy. com to encourage the introduction of mandatory disclaimers on retouched images in popular media. Much like the model in Body Evolution, by the end of the video Boglárka bears little resemblance to her appearance at the start. A brief split-screen comparison shows the viewer how drastically different the final result is, Boggie then counters this pressure with the lines, Je ne suis pas leur produit / De beauté, d’préciosité / Ils ne peuvent pas me changer. The designer labels and subversive message do not feature in the original Hungarian lyrics of Parfüm, Boggie represented Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with the song Wars for Nothing. On 19 May 2015 she qualified for the grand final. Boggies website Music video to Parfüm on YouTube Music video to Nouveau Parfum on YouTube Music video to Nouveau Parfum on Vimeo
Boggie
–
Boggie in
Pécs,
Hungary (2015)
36.
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
37.
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)
38.
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Azerbaijan made its debut at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008, after İctimai Televiziya became an active member of the European Broadcasting Union. İTV had broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest in previous years, purchasing broadcasting rights from the EBU, Azerbaijan is the last country in the Caucasus to participate, Armenia was the first one, in 2006, followed by Georgia in 2007. Azerbaijan since their debut in 2008 has never missed the final. Azerbaijan reached the Top 5 in five contests, and achieved the Top 5 place finishes each once - 3rd in 2009, 5th in 2010, 1st in 2011, 4th in 2012. Azerbaijans first try at Eurovision proved to be successful as the qualified for the final from the first semi-final. Previously, another broadcaster, AzTV, wanted to participate in 2007, AzTV was denied active EBU membership on 18 June 2007, as it was considered too connected to the Azerbaijani government. On 5 July, İTV became a full EBU member, azerbaijans first Eurovision performance by Elnur and Samir made it in the top ten placed at number 8 with 132 points. In 2009 Azerbaijan achieved an improvement on their 2008 debut, coming third and receiving 207 points with the song Always, on 14 May 2011, Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with a song by Ell & Nikki. With their entry only receiving 5.26 points per voting country, since debuting in 2008 the contest has been extremely popular in the country. After placing in the Top 10 at their debut in 2008 and also ending in the Top 5 from 2009-2013, Azerbaijan expects their act to end up in the Top 5 and the country often hires very well established songwriters and producers to make their entry for the contest. Azerbaijan issued a stamp dedicated to Azerbaijan’s victory with Ell & Nikki at Eurovision. The duo also became national stars after their Eurovision 2011 win, the country spent €160 million on hosting the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, including building a completely new arena for the event. As of 2015, this is the largest amount of any host has ever spent on hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. Table key NOTE, If a country had won the previous year, 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 three categories, Press Award, Artistic Award, and Composer Award. co. uk
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Elnur &
Samir in
Belgrade (
2008)
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Aysel &
Arash in
Moscow (
2009)
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
–
Safura Alizadeh in
Oslo (
2010)
39.
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)
40.
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
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Conny Vandenbos at Naples (
1965)
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Netherlands
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Edsilia Rombley at Helsinki (
2007)
Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Hind at Belgrade (
2008)
41.
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Greece has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 37 times since its debut in 1974, missing six contests in that time. Greece won for the first time in 2005 with My Number One, the national broadcaster, Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi broadcast the event each year and organised the process for the selection of the Greek entry. Greece has never finished last in the contest, in the 21st century, Greece has been more successful, with ten top-ten results, including third-place finishes for Antique in 2001, Sakis Rouvas in 2004 and Kalomira in 2008. Greece was disqualified from the Eurovision Song Contest 1982 after it was revealed that Themis Adamantidis was to sing Sarantapente Kopelies, a previously released song. A known Greek folk song had been revised for the competition, Greece was forced to pay a fine, and was allowed to return the following year. Had Adamantidis been allowed to perform Sarantapente Kopelies, he would have appeared second at Harrogate, after returning in 1983, ERT decided that all of the possible songs were of low quality and decided not to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984. Had she performed, she would have appeared eighteenth and she would have performed the song Wagon-lit, the following year ERT announced that it would not return at the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 due to financial reasons. The song also made Greece the first country not a member of Big Four to win the contest without going through a semifinal. Before Greeces win, the highest score was third place, achieved by duo Antique in 2001 with Die for You and then again by Sakis Rouvas in 2004 with Shake It. Greeces least successful result was at 20th place in 1998 with the song Mia Krifi Evesthisia by Thalassa, with 12 points, all from Cyprus, riskyKidd, with 35 points, but this time Cyprus was out of the contest. In 2006, the 51st Eurovision Song Contest was held in Athens, Greece, the two hosts were popular singer, and former contestant, Sakis Rouvas and Greek American presenter Maria Menounos. The singer representing Greece in their own country was popular Greek Cypriot artist Anna Vissi, for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, ERT was able to secure a high-profile artist once again and planned a national final to choose the song. Greece has been one of the most successful countries in the Eurovision Song Contest in the 21st century, including ninth in 2006, seventh in 2007, third in 2008, seventh in 2009, eighth in 2010 and seventh in 2011. In 2014, Greece finished in 20th place, which, along with 1998, is the countries worst result in the contest, Greece was one of only three countries to have never failed to qualify from the semifinals since their 2004 introduction. In addition, Greece also qualified from the 1996 audio-only pre-qualifying round, in 2015, Greece failed to reach the top-ten for the third time in four years, finishing 19th. Since 2013, the music channel MAD produces the Greek national final, for 2016, ERT selected the Eurovision entry internally. They selected the band Argo with the song Utopian Land For the first time since the semi-finals were introduced in 2004 and they finished 16th in the first semi-final. Greece is famous for, especially in recent years, always giving twelve points to Cyprus and this is one of many examples of the bloc voting seen in contest which also occurs between Iberian, Balkan, Scandinavian, ex-Soviet and Baltic countries
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Sakis Rouvas in
Istanbul (
2004)
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Helena Paparizou receiving her prize after her win in
Kiev (
2005)
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Sarbel in
Helsinki (
2007)
42.
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Norway has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 55 times since making its debut in 1960 and has only been absent twice since then. In 1970, the country boycotted the contest over disagreements about the voting structure, Norway has won the contest three times. The contest is broadcast in Norway by NRK, which also broadcasts Norways national selection competition, Norways first entrant in the contest in 1960 was Nora Brockstedt, who finished fourth. Åse Kleveland then finished third in 1966 and these would remain Norways only top five results until 1985, when Bobbysocks gave the country its first victory with the song La det swinge. The country achieved two top five results over the next ten years, with both Karoline Krüger in 1988 and Silje Vige in 1993, finishing fifth. Norways second victory came in 1995 with Secret Gardens mainly instrumental, in 1996, Elisabeth Andreassen, who had won the contest as one half of Bobbysocks, returned to finish second. In 2003, Jostein Hasselgård was fourth, Norway won for the third time in 2009, with Alexander Rybaks smash hit Fairytale. The 2009 winning score of 387 points being the highest ever winning total and it also achieved the biggest ever margin of victory. Norway also has the two distinctions of having finished last in the Eurovision final more than any other country. The country has finished last eleven times, failing to score a point four times, since the introduction of the semi-final round in 2004, Norway has finished in the top ten six times. In 2015 Mørland & Debrah Scarlett finished eighth with A Monster Like Me, Norway has a total of 11 top five and 22 top ten results in the contest. If a country had won the year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition from 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the semi-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. The organisation consists of a network of 40 Eurovision Song Contest fan clubs across Europe and beyond, and is a non-governmental, non-political, and non-profitable company. In what has become a tradition for the OGAE fan clubs. Melodi Grand Prix Norway in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest Norway in the Eurovision Young Musicians Melodi Grand Prix Points to and from Norway eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Maria Haukaas Storeng performing "
Hold On Be Strong " at Belgrade (
2008)
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Alexander Rybak, performing "
Fairytale " at Moscow (
2009)
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Margaret Berger performing "
I Feed You My Love " at Malmö (
2013)
43.
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
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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
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Todomondo at Helsinki (
2007)
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Romania
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Nico &
Vlad at Belgrade (
2008)
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Mandinga at Baku (
2012)
44.
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Serbia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest nine times since making its debut in 2007. Serbia previously participated as part of Yugoslavia and as Serbia and Montenegro, Serbia won the contest on its debut as an Independent country in 2007, with Marija Šerifović and the song Molitva. The countrys next best result is Željko Joksimovićs third place in 2012, Serbia also reached the top ten in 2008 and 2015. In 1989 Yugoslavia won the Eurovision Song Contest for the time in their history, with Rock Me, sung in Croatian. Serbias debut entry as an independent nation, the ballad Molitva by Marija Šerifović, won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007, Serbia became the first country that won with debut entry after Switzerlands win at the first edition. After this, they were the host of the 2008 contest in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the second Serbian entry, performed in Belgrade was written by past entrant for Serbia as part of Serbia and Montenegro and contest host Željko Joksimović. The song Oro, a ballad, performed by Jelena Tomašević came 6th. In 2009, Serbia selected Marko Kon and Milaan to represent them in the second semi-final on 14 May, the duo failed to qualify for the final for the first time in Serbias history in the contest. In 2010, Milan Stanković was selected to represent the country in the contest with Ovo je Balkan, a song with ethno elements. It qualified for the final and in the end achieved 13th place with 72 points, in 2011, Nina was selected with her 60s inspired song, Čaroban. She was accompanied with three singers who would be dancing throughout the performance. In the semi-finals She performed 6th and qualified for the final, in the final, she performed 24th and achieved 14th place. Željko Joksimović represented Serbia in 2012 in Azerbaijan, Baku with the song Nije ljubav stvar, on the second semi-finals he took second place, while he finished third in the final, below second-placed Russia and the winner, Sweden. Moje 3 represented Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö with the song Ljubav je svuda and they would finish 11th in the first semi-final, therefore not qualifying for the final. This was the time that Serbia did not qualify for the final. In April 2014, Serbia announced that they will broadcast all three shows, in addition, they said that it is likely to return at 2015 and that they will probably hold a national selection to find their representative. On 26 September 2014, it was reported that Serbia had decided to return to the 2015 contest to be held in Austrian capital, on 15 February 2015 Serbia chose their own representative in emission Odbrojavanje za Beč. Odbrojavanje za Beč is the national final organised by RTS in order to select the Serbian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, the selection featured three songs composed by Vladimir Graić, the composer of Serbias winning entry Molitva in 2007
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Željko Joksimović and
Jovana Janković during the
Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Marija Šerifović at Helsinki (
2007)
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Jelena Tomašević at Belgrade (
2008)
45.
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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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
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Feminnem at Oslo (
2010)
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Klapa s Mora at Malmö (
2013)
46.
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Finland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 50 times since its debut in 1961. Finland won the contest for the first time in 2006 with Lordis Hard Rock Hallelujah, previously, its best showing was Marion Rung’s song Tom Tom Tom in 1973, which was placed 6th. Finland has finished last in the contest ten times, receiving nul points in 1963,1965 and 1982, since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Finland has failed to reach the final six times. In 2014, the country had its best result for eight years when Softengine finished 11th, in 2015 Finland finished last in Semi Final One with the shortest ever Eurovision entry Aina mun pitää that only lasts 1 minute and 25 seconds by PKN. Before the 2006 victory, Finland was considered by many as the ultimate under-achiever of Eurovision, prior to its triumph, it had placed last a total of eight times, once with nul points after the introduction of the current scoring method. Finlands entry in 1982, Nuku pommiin by Kojo, was one of fifteen songs since the modern scoring system was instituted in 1975 to earn no points. Due to low results, Finland was excluded from the contest in 1995,1997,1999,2001 and 2003, in 2006, Finland won with The band Lordi and its song Hard Rock Hallelujah, an entry different from the mainstream Europop that dominated the competition. The song broke records scoring the highest number of points in Eurovision Song Contest history. The record was broken by Norway in 2009. All of Finlands entries were in English between 1973 and 1976 and again since 2000, both of these periods allowed submissions in any language, two entries,1990 and 2012, were in Swedish, which is an official language in Finland alongside Finnish. All of Finlands other songs have been in Finnish, in voting patterns, Finland has traditionally supported and been supported by the other Nordic countries. In recent years also the Baltic nations, such as Estonia and Latvia have been favoured by Finland, and the other way around. In 2004, Finlands first-place vote went to Sweden, in 2005, it contributed 12 points to Norway, in 2006, it was Russias turn to get the 12 points, but it was Serbia who got their top score in 2007. The first time in Eurovision history that Sweden gave Finland 12 points was in 2006 for Lordis song Hard Rock Hallelujah, in 2007, they repeated this, giving 12 points to Hanna Pakarinen with Leave Me Alone. Finland has also given notably high points to Italy, a country that had not competed in various periods, especially from 1998 to 2010, ^ In 2009, Finland qualified through the back-up jury selection. If a country had won the year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition from 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Viktor Klimenko at
Naples (
1965)
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Hanna Pakarinen at
Helsinki (
2007)
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Teräsbetoni at
Belgrade (
2008)
47.
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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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
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Eiríkur Hauksson at Helsinki (
2007)
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Iceland
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Euroband at Belgrade (
2008)
Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Eythor Ingi at Malmö (
2013)
48.
Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Estonia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 22 times since making its debut in 1994. Estonia has won the contest once, in 2001, Estonias first participation in 1994 was not a successful one, coming second last only to Lithuania. The country was relegated from the 1995 contest. From its second entry in 1996, the country entered its best era in the contest, maarja-Liis Ilus and Ivo Linnas fifth place in 1996 was the first top five ranking for a former Soviet country. This made Estonia the first former Soviet country to win the contest, the 2002 contest was held in Tallinn, with Sahlene finishing joint third for the hosts. Estonias total of nine top ten results, is more than any other Baltic country, Estonias record at the contest was a successful one from 1996 to 2002, only failing once to make the top 10. As such the 2002 contest was held in Estonia, in the capital city Tallinn, at the second semi-final of the 2009 contest, Urban Symphony qualified Estonia to the final of the contest for the first time since 2003, receiving 115 points and placing 3rd. The group performed 15th in the final, where it received 129 points, in 2010, Estonia failed to qualify to the final, with the song Siren by Malcolm Lincoln. In 2011, Estonia was represented by Getter Jaani with the song Rockefeller Street and she was the bookmakers pre-contest favorite for victory along with France. She qualified to the final but eventually placed 24th of 25 entries- tying Silvi Vraits 1994 result for Estonias worst placing in the contest final, in 2012, Ott Lepland qualified Estonia to the final with his song Kuula, ending up 4th in the second semi-final. In the final, he equalled Estonias result of 1999 and 2009, together with Urban Symphony in 2009, Kuula gave Estonia its best result in the contest since 2009. ^ Estonia unsuccessfully attempted to participate in 1993, when there was a round for seven countries hoping to make their debut in the contest. The official Eurovision site does not count 1993 in Estonias list of appearances, as of 2016, Estonias voting history is as follows, Points to and from Estonia eurovisioncovers. co. uk
Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Neiokõsõ at
Istanbul (
2004)
Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Sandra Oxenryd at
Athens (
2006)
Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
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Gerli Padar at
Helsinki (
2007)
49.
M1 (TV channel)
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M1 is a Hungarian television channel owned and operated by Magyar Televízió. It is also transmitted in high definition and it was the most watched national channel in Hungary and its transmission receiving is 97%. On 15 March 2015, M1 was relaunched as a 24-hour news channel, weekdays 05,55 – Ma reggel 10,25 – Család-barát 17,30 - Ridikül 18,30 - A Következő. It was first program with clock before it, entertainment programmes were broadcast without advertisements. During 1971-1989 there were school programmes in daytime and this made the startup come at 8am instead of 6pm. During weekends, summer and winter they started at 6pm with m2, in 1989, school programming was replaced with morning programmes broadcast between 5, 40am and 9, 00am. Later there was the program at 11, 00-12,00 and noon program at 12. So the broadcast were from 5,40 to 23,25 or 2,00, entertainment afternoon program from 12,00 to 15,30 ran until 1997. Kinevezés és kinevezése, Hungarys first sitcom, broadcasting on Wednesday night at 23,15 to 23,45, marslakók - an original Hungarian daily soap opera, UFOs From The Mars in English Szerencsekerék and Mindent Vagy Semmit. Hungarian versions of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, eastern Bloc information dissemination www. mtv. hu M1 presentation at TVARK
M1 (TV channel)
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M1
For the most recent participation see
Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
