Eurovision Song Contest

Naming

The programme was first known as the "Eurovision Grand Prix" (in English). This "Grand Prix" name was adopted by Germany, Denmark, Norway and the Francophone countries, with the French designation being Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne.^[19] The "Grand Prix" was dropped in 1973 and replaced with Concours (contest) in French and in 2001 with the English name in German, but not in Danish or Norwegian. The Eurovision network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU.^[20] However, in the minds of the public, the name "Eurovision" is most closely associated with the Song Contest.^[17]

Host country

After the first two contests were hosted by Switzerland and Germany, it was decided that henceforth the winning country would host the contest the next year.^[18] The winner of the 1957 Contest was the Netherlands, and Dutch television accepted the responsibility of hosting in 1958. In all but five of the years since this rule has been in place, the winning country has hosted the show the following year. The exceptions are:

• 1960—hosted by the BBC in London when the Netherlands declined due to expense. The UK was chosen to host because it had come second in 1959.^[41]
• 1963—hosted by the BBC in London when France declined due to expense. Although the UK had only come fourth in 1962, Monaco and Luxembourg (who came second and third) had also declined.^[41]
• 1972—hosted by the BBC in Edinburgh when Monaco was unable to provide a suitable venue: Monegasque television invited the BBC to take over due to its previous experience.^[41]
• 1974—hosted by the BBC in Brighton when Luxembourg declined due to expense. The BBC was becoming known as the host by default, if the winning country declined.^[23]
• 1980—hosted by the NOS in The Hague when Israel declined due to expense, having staged the 1979 event in Jerusalem, and the fact that the date chosen for the contest (19 April) was Israel's Remembrance Day that year. The Dutch offered to host the contest after several other broadcasters (including the BBC) were unwilling to do so.^[41] The reluctance of those national broadcasters to stage the contest were due to already having hosted the event during the past couple of years, in addition to the expense involved.

With the invitation of Australia to participate since 2015, it was announced that due to the logistical and financial issues that would occur if Australia were to host,^[42] in the event of an Australian victory, the broadcaster SBS will co-host the next contest in a European city in collaboration with an EBU Member Broadcaster of their choice.^[43] However, this has yet to happen and since 1981, all contests have been held in the country which won the previous year.

Eurovision logo and theme

Logo used in 2004–14

The former generic logo was introduced for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in Turkey, to create a consistent visual identity. The host country's flag appears in the heart of the generic logo. Each year of the contest, the host country creates a sub-theme which is usually accompanied and expressed with a sub-logo and slogan. The theme and slogan are announced by the EBU and the host country's national broadcaster.

The generic logo was revamped in 2014, ten years after the first generic logo was created. The revamped logo was conducted by lead designer Cornelis Jacobs and his team of Cityzen Agency.^[44] The logo was used for the first time in the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, the 60th anniversary of the contest.

Slogans

Since the 2002 contest, slogans have been introduced in the show (2009 being the only exception). The slogan is decided by the host broadcaster and is then used to develop a visual design for the contest.

Year	Host country	Host city	Slogan/Theme
2002	Estonia	Tallinn	A Modern Fairytale
2003	Latvia	Riga	Magical Rendezvous
2004	Turkey	Istanbul	Under The Same Sky
2005	Ukraine	Kiev	Awakening
2006	Greece	Athens	Feel The Rhythm!
2007	Finland	Helsinki	True Fantasy
2008	Serbia	Belgrade	Confluence of Sound
2010	Norway	Oslo	Share The Moment
2011	Germany	Düsseldorf	Feel Your Heart Beat!
2012	Azerbaijan	Baku	Light Your Fire!
2013	Sweden	Malmö	We Are One
2014	Denmark	Copenhagen	#JoinUs
2015	Austria	Vienna	Building Bridges
2016	Sweden	Stockholm	Come Together
2017	Ukraine	Kiev	Celebrate Diversity
2018	Portugal	Lisbon	All Aboard!

Eurovision Week

The term "Eurovision Week" is used to refer to the week during which the Contest takes place.^[45] As it is a live show, the Eurovision Song Contest requires the performers to have perfected their acts in rehearsals for the programme to run smoothly. In addition to rehearsals in their home countries, every participant is given the opportunity to rehearse on the stage in the Eurovision auditorium. These rehearsals are held during the course of several days before the Saturday show, and consequently the delegations arrive in the host city many days before the event. Journalists and fans are also present during the preceding days, and so the events of Eurovision last a lot longer than a few hours of television. A number of officially accredited hotels are selected for the delegations to stay in, and shuttle-bus services are used to transport the performers and accompanying people to and from the contest venue.^[46]

Each participating broadcaster nominates a Head of Delegation, whose job it is to co-ordinate the movements of the delegate members, and who acts as that country's representative to the EBU in the host city.^[47] Members of the delegations include performers, lyricists, composers, official press officers and—in the years where songs were performed with a live orchestra—a conductor. Also present if desired is a commentator: each broadcaster may supply their own commentary for their TV and/or radio feed, to be broadcast in each country. The commentators are given dedicated commentary booths situated around the back of the arena behind the audience.

Rehearsals and press conferences

Lena, representing Germany, performing Satellite during a rehearsal in 2010

Since 2004, the first rehearsals have commenced on the Sunday almost two weeks before the Grand Final. There are two rehearsal periods for each country. The countries taking part in the semi-finals have their first rehearsal over four days from the first Sunday to Wednesday. The second is from Thursday to Sunday. The countries which have already directly qualified for the Grand Final rehearse on the Saturday and Sunday.^[48]

Switzerland hosting a press conference at Eurovision 2006

After each country has rehearsed, the delegation meets with the show's artistic director in the video viewing room. Here, they watch the footage of the rehearsal just performed. At this point the Head of Delegation may make known any special requirements needed for the performance, and request them from the host broadcaster. Following this meeting, the delegation hold a press conference where members of the accredited press may pose them questions.^[49] The rehearsals and press conferences are held in parallel; so one country holds its press conference, while the next one is in the auditorium rehearsing. A printed summary of the questions and answers which emerge from the press conferences is produced by the host press office, and distributed to journalists' pigeon-holes.^[50]

Before each of the semi-finals three dress rehearsals are held. Two rehearsals are held the day before (one in the afternoon and the other in the evening), while the third is held on the afternoon of the live event. Since tickets to the live shows are often scarce, tickets are also sold so the public may attend these dress rehearsals.

The same applies for the final, with two rehearsals on the Friday and the third on Saturday afternoon before the live transmission of the grand final on Saturday evening.^[49] For both semi-finals and for the final, the second dress rehearsal is also the Jury Final, this is where the jury from each country casts their votes. This means that 50% of the result is already decided before the live contests have taken place.^[48]

Parties and Euroclub

The "Euroclub" in Baku, 2012

On the Monday evening of Eurovision Week, a Mayor's Reception is traditionally held, where the city administration hosts a celebration that Eurovision has come to their city. This is usually held in a grand municipally owned location in the city centre. All delegations are invited, and the party is usually accompanied by live music, complimentary food and drink and—in recent years—fireworks.^[51]

After the semi-final and grand final there are after-show parties, held either in a facility in the venue complex or in another suitable location within the city.^[52]

A Euroclub is held every night of the week: this is a Eurovision-themed nightclub, to which all accredited personnel are invited.^[53]

During the week many delegations have traditionally hosted their own parties in addition to the officially sponsored ones. However, in the new millennium the trend has been for the national delegations to centralise their activity and hold their celebrations in the Euroclub.^[53]

Live music

All vocals must be sung live; no voices are permitted on the backing tracks.^[22] In 1999, the Croatian song performed by Doris Dragović and composed by Tonči Huljić featured sounds on their backing track which sounded suspiciously like human voices. The Croatian delegation stated that there were no human voices, but only digitally synthesised sounds which replicated vocals. The EBU nevertheless decided that they had broken the spirit of the rules, and docked them 33% of their points total that year for the purpose of calculating their five-year points average for future qualification.^[54]

From 1956 until 1998, the host country was required to provide a live orchestra. Before 1973, all music had to be played by the host orchestra. From 1973 onwards, pre-recorded, non-vocal backing tracks were permitted—although the host country was still obliged to provide a live orchestra to give participants a choice. If a backing track was used, then all the instruments heard on the track were required to be present on the stage. In 1997 this requirement was dropped.^[41]

In 1999 the requirement for a live orchestra was removed: it was left as an optional contribution.^[55] The host that year, Israel's IBA, decided not to use an orchestra to save expenses, and thus 1999 was the first year when all the songs were played as pre-recorded backing tracks (in conjunction with live vocals).

Language

Each submission must have vocals; purely instrumental music has never been allowed. In the past, competitors have been required to sing in one of their own national languages, but this rule has been changed several times over the years. From 1956 until 1965, there was no rule restricting the languages in which the songs could be sung. In 1966 a rule was imposed stating that the songs must be performed in one of the official languages of the country participating, after Sweden was the first country to not sing in their own language, with opera singer Ingvar Wixell performing Sweden's 1965 entry in English.^[18] The Swedish-language version of the song was originally selected at Melodifestivalen 1965, but it was later translated into English for the Eurovision contest.

The language restriction continued until 1973, when performers were again allowed to sing in any language they wished.^[56] Several winners in the mid-1970s took advantage of this: performers from non-English-speaking countries sang in English, including ABBA in 1974.

In 1977, the EBU decided to revert to the national language restriction. However, special dispensation was given to Germany and Belgium as their national selections had already taken place before the decision was made; both countries' entries that year were in English.^[57]

In 1999 the rule was changed again to allow the choice of language once more, which resulted in 12 out of 23 countries, including the United Kingdom, singing in English that year.^[54] Belgium entered the 2003 contest with "Sanomi", a song sung in a constructed language,^[58] finishing in second place. In 2006 the Dutch entry, "Amambanda", was sung partly in English and partly in an artificial language.^[58] In 2008 the Belgian entry, "O Julissi", was sung in an artificial language.^[58] In 2011 the Norwegian entry, "Haba Haba", which was sung in English and Swahili, was the first song to be sung in an African language, apart from Arabic.^[59]

Since the language rule was abolished in 1999, songs in English have become increasingly more common. In 2016 all but three out of 36 semi-finalists had songs in English, with only two (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia) performing songs in their native languages, as Austria sent a song in French. In the final, all but three out of 26 contestants had songs in English. After Salvador Sobral's win in 2017 with a Portuguese-language song, the 2018 edition saw a significant increase in the use of native languages, with twelve of 43 participants singing in their country's native language (not including Estonia, whose representative opted to sing in Italian).

Voting

The voting system used in the contest has changed over the years. The current system has been in place since 2016, and is a positional voting system. Each country awards two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs: one from their professional jury of votes of five music professionals and the other from televoting.^[60]

Historically, a country's votes were decided by an internal jury, but in 1997 five countries (Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom) experimented with televoting, giving members of the public in those countries the opportunity to vote en masse for their favourite songs. The experiment was a success,^[41] and from 1998 onwards all countries were encouraged to use televoting wherever possible. Back-up juries are still used by each country, in the event of a televoting failure. Nowadays members of the public may also vote by SMS, in addition to televoting. In every case, every country cannot vote for its own song ^[61] From 2013, the public may also vote via a mobile app.^[62][63]

The current method for ranking entries, introduced in 2016, is to sum together the points calculated from the telephone vote and the jury separately.^[60] Prior to this, the jury and televoting rankings were combined 50/50 before the number of points were calculated.^[64] It was first used in the final of the 2009 edition, and extended the following year to the semi-finals. ^[65][66]

Since 1964 the voting has been presided over by the EBU scrutineer, who is responsible for ensuring that all points are allocated correctly and in turn. The following are the scrutineers and Executive Supervisors of the Eurovision Song Contest appointed by the EBU:

Country	Name	Year(s)
Switzerland	Rolf Liebermann	1956
None		1957–63
Yugoslavia	Miroslav Vilček	1964–65
United Kingdom	Clifford Brown	1966–77
Switzerland	Frank Naef	1978–92
Denmark	Christian Clausen	1993–95
France	Christine Marchal-Ortiz	1996, 1998–2002
	Marie-Claire Vionnet	1997
United Kingdom	Sarah Yuen	2003
Sweden	Svante Stockselius	2004–10
Norway	Jon Ola Sand	2011–

According to one study of Eurovision voting patterns, certain countries tend to form "clusters" or "cliques" by frequently voting in the same way.^[67]

Presentation of votes

Electronic scoreboard, as Johnny Logan announces the Irish votes in 2004

After the interval act is over, when all the points have been calculated, the presenter(s) of the show call upon each voting country in turn to invite them to announce the results of their vote. Prior to 1994 the announcements were made over telephone lines; with the audio being piped into the auditorium for the audience to hear, and over the television transmission. However, since and including 1994 the announcements have been presented visually. Often the opportunity is taken by each country to show their spokesperson standing in front of a backdrop which includes a famous place in that country. For example, the French spokesperson might be seen standing in front of the Eiffel Tower or an Italian presenter might be seen with the Colosseum in the background.

From 1957 to 1962, the participating countries were called in reverse order of the presentation of their songs, and from 1963 to 2003, they were called in the same order in which their songs had been presented (except for 1974). Since 2004, when semi-finals were introduced, the order of the countries' announcements of votes has changed; and the countries that did not make it to the final each year could also vote. In 2004, the countries were called in alphabetical order (according to their ISO codes).^[68] In 2005, the votes from the non-qualifying semi-finalists were announced first, in their running order on the Thursday night; then the finalists gave their votes in their own order of performance. Between 2006 and 2010, like in 1974, a separate draw was held to determine the order in which countries would present their votes.^[69] From 2011 to 2015, the voting order was determined by the results of a jury the day before the final so as to create as much suspense as possible when the votes were revealed.^[70]

From 1971 to 1973, each country sent two jurors, who were present at the contest venue (though the juries in 1972 were locked away in the Great Hall of Edinburgh Castle) and announced their votes as the camera was trained on them. In 1973 one of the Swiss jurors made a great show of presenting his votes with flamboyant gestures. This system was retired the next year.^[41]

In 1956 no public votes were presented: a closed jury simply announced that Switzerland had won.^[71] From 1957 to 1987, the points were displayed on a physical scoreboard to the side of the stage. As digital graphic technology progressed, the physical scoreboards were superseded in 1988 by an electronic representation which could be displayed on the TV screen at the will of the programme's director.^[72]

In 2006^[69] the EBU decided to save time during the broadcast—much of which had been taken up with the announcement of every single point—because there was an ever-increasing number of countries voting. Since then, votes from 1 to 7 from each country have been displayed automatically on screen and the remaining points (8, 10 and 12) are read out in ascending order by the spokesperson, culminating with the maximum 12 points. Countries must announce the country names and points in either English or French and the scores are repeated by the contest's presenters in the other language. For this reason, the expression douze points when the host or spokesperson states the top score in French is popularly associated with the contest throughout the continent.^[55] Since 2016, only the name of the top jury votegetter is announced, with the points awarded to the other 9 countries shown in an on-screen scoreboard during the announcement. In addition, only the jury points are announced by country. The televoting results are announced in aggregate, from lowest-scoring country to highest. After the winner has been announced, the televoting points from the country where the contest is watched from are briefly seen on screen.

Broadcasting

Each participating broadcaster is required to broadcast the show in its entirety: including all songs, recap, voting and reprise, skipping only the interval act for advertising breaks if they wish.^[22] From 1999 onwards, broadcasters who wished to do so were given the opportunity to take more advertising breaks as short, non-essential hiatuses were introduced into the programme.^[55] Three major interruptions or preemptions of the contest broadcast have taken place since 1999. The Dutch state broadcaster pulled their broadcast of the 2000 final to provide emergency news coverage of a major incident, the Enschede fireworks disaster.^[75] Spain's RTVE delayed their broadcast of the second semi-final in the 2009 Contest, due to the Madrid Open tennis tournament.^[76] The Albanian state broadcaster deferred their broadcast of the first semi-final in 2012 to provide emergency news coverage of the Qafa e Vishës bus accident.^[77] In 2018, Chinese broadcaster Mango TV edited the Albanian and Irish songs out of their broadcast of the first semifinal for violations of Chinese broadcast regulations. The Albanian performer had visible tattoos, and the Irish song featured a storyline showing vignettes of a homosexual couple. Eurovision terminated Mango's broadcasting rights when the broadcaster refused to agree to air the second semifinal and the grand final unedited.

Other

• In the first contest in 1956, there was a recommended time limit of 3½ minutes per song.^[84] In 1957, despite protests, Italy's song was 5:09 minutes in duration. This led to a stricter time limit of 3 minutes precisely.^[85] Since the three-minute time limit was adopted in 1960, some artists have had songs longer than three minutes, which must be edited down to 3 minutes, though some songs exceed that time by a few seconds. Many of the entries also have longer versions (including different languages) for commercial release, and since the 1990s, some are released in additional remixed versions.
• The EBU imposes no restrictions on the nationalities of the performers or songwriters. Individual broadcasters are, however, permitted to impose their own restrictions at their discretion.^[47] About a dozen artists have performed more than once in the Contest representing different countries, and some of the winners were not born in the country they represented.
• From 1957 to 1970 (in 1956 there was no restriction at all) only soloists and duos were allowed on stage. From 1963, a chorus of up to three people was permitted. Since 1971, a maximum of six performers have been permitted on the stage.^[47]
• The performance and/or lyrics of a song "must not bring the Contest into disrepute". No lyrics, speeches, gestures of a political or similar nature are permitted. No swearing or unacceptable language is allowed, neither are commercial messages.^[22]
• From 1990 onwards, all people on stage must be at least 16 years of age.^[22]
• No live animals.^[22]
• Each artist may perform for only one country per year.
• The music and text must not have been published or performed before 1 September of the year before the contest is held. Many countries also have the additional rule that the song shall never have been performed before the relevant national Eurovision Contest. Covers, reworked or sampled versions of older songs are not allowed.^[86]

Pre-selections and relegation

Since 1993, and following the cessation of the Eastern European OIRT network and the merger with the EBU, there have been more entries than there is time to reasonably include in a single TV show. Several relegation or qualification systems have been tried to limit the number of countries participating in the contest at one time. Thus the 1993 Contest introduced two new features: first, a pre-selection competition was held in Ljubljana in which seven new countries fought for three places in the international competition. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia took part in Kvalifikacija za Millstreet; and the three former Yugoslav republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, qualified for a place in the international final.^[88] Also to be introduced that year was "relegation": the lowest-placed countries in the 1993 score table were not invited in 1994, to allow the countries which failed the 1993 pre-selection into the 1994 Contest. The 1994 Contest included—for the first time—Estonia, Romania, Slovakia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and Russia.^[89]

Relegation continued in 1994 and 1995;^[90] but in 1996 a different pre-selection system was used, in which nearly all the countries participated. Audio tapes of all the songs were sent to juries in each of the countries some weeks before the television show. These juries selected the songs which would be included in the international broadcast.^[91] Norway, as the host country in 1996 (having won the previous year), automatically qualified and so did not need to go through pre-selection.

One country which failed to qualify in the 1996 pre-selection was Germany. As one of the largest financial contributors to the EBU, their non-participation in the contest brought about a funding issue, which the EBU would have to consider.^[91]

Big Four and Big Five

Since 2000, France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom have automatically qualified for the final, regardless of their positions on the scoreboard in previous contests, as they are the four biggest financial contributors to the EBU.^[55] These countries became known as the "Big Four". On 31 December 2010, it was announced that Italy would compete in the Eurovision Song Contest after a fourteen-year absence and that it would also automatically qualify for the final, joining the other four qualifiers to become the "Big Five", considered by some to be a controversial decision.^[92] Germany became the first and, as of 2018, the only "Big Five" country to win the contest since the rule was made in 2000, when Lena Meyer-Landrut won the 2010 Contest. Turkey withdrew from the 2013 Contest with the status of the "Big Five" being one of the reasons cited.^[93] They also did not participate in the following 5 years' of contests (2014–18) for similar reasons, as well as stating their opposition to the 50/50 jury and televoting system that began being applied in the final of the 2009 Contest.^[94]

The only country in the Big 5 (since 2011) that has never finished last in the finals is Italy.

Qualification and semi-finals

Each country's qualification rates from 2004 to present

From 1997 to 2001, countries qualified for each contest based on the average of their points totals for their entries over the previous five years.^[95][96] However, there was much discontent voiced over this system because a country could be excluded merely because of poor previous results, which did not take into account how good a fresh attempt might be. The worst example of this was that Bosnia and Herzegovina finished 7th with 86 points in the 1999 Contest, but it wasn't enough to save the country being relegated from taking part in the 2000 Contest. This led the EBU to create what was hoped would be a more permanent solution to the problem. A qualification round, known as the semi-final, was introduced for the 2004 Contest.^[97] This semi-final was held on the Wednesday during Eurovision Week, and was a programme similar in format to the grand final, whose time slot remained 19:00 UTC on the Saturday. The highest-placed songs from the semi-final qualified for the grand final, while the lower-placed songs were eliminated. From 2005 to 2007, the semi-final programme was held on the Thursday of Eurovision Week.^[98] In these two shows there was enough time to include all the countries who wished to participate.

The ten highest-placed non-Big Four countries in the "grand final" were guaranteed a place in the following year's grand final, without having to qualify. If, for example, Germany came in the top ten, the eleventh-placed non-Big-Four country would automatically qualify for the next year's grand final.^[47] The remaining countries—which had not automatically qualified for the grand final—had to enter the semi-final.^[47]

At the 50th annual meeting of the EBU reference group in September 2007, it was decided that, with still more nations entering, starting from the 2008 contest onwards two semi-finals would be held,^[99] from each of which one could qualify for the final.^[100] From 2008 onwards, the scoreboard position in previous years has not been relevant, and—save for the automatic qualifiers—all participating countries have had to participate in the semi-finals, regardless of their previous year's scoreboard position. The only countries which automatically qualify for the grand final are the host country and the Big Five: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, who continue to enjoy their protected status.^[22]

In each of the semi-finals the voting is conducted among those countries which participate in that semi-final. With regard to the automatic grand final qualifiers, who do not participate in the semi-finals, a draw is conducted to determine in which semi-final each of them will be allowed to vote. In contrast, every participating country in a particular year may vote in the Saturday grand final – whether their song qualified for the final or not.

The ten countries which receive the most votes in each semi-final qualify for the grand final. They are announced by the presenters in English and French, in a random order. Full voting results are withheld until after the grand final, whereupon they are published on the EBU's website.^[22] To date only two countries have always qualified to the Final since the implementation of the semi-finals system in 2004: Australia and Ukraine.

Winning artists

There have been a number of Eurovision artists and groups whose careers were directly launched into the spotlight following their win. Notable examples were ABBA, who won the contest for Sweden in 1974 with their song "Waterloo", and went on to become one of the most successful pop bands in history;^[107] the French Canadian singer Céline Dion, who won the contest for Switzerland in 1988 with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi", which subsequently helped launch her international career;^[7] and the winners of the 1981 contest, Bucks Fizz for the United Kingdom with the song "Making Your Mind Up", which also launched a successful international career^[108].

Other artists who have achieved varying degrees of success after winning the contest include France Gall ("Poupée de cire, poupée de son", Luxembourg 1965), Dana ("All Kinds of Everything", Ireland 1970), Vicky Leandros ("Après toi", Luxembourg 1972), Brotherhood of Man ("Save Your Kisses for Me", United Kingdom 1976), and Johnny Logan (who won twice for Ireland, with "What's Another Year" in 1980 and "Hold Me Now" in 1987).

Several other winners were well-known artists who won the contest mid-career after they had already established themselves, including Katrina and the Waves, winners in 1997 with "Love Shine a Light",^[109] Lulu, winner in 1969 with "Boom Bang-a-Bang", and Sandie Shaw, winner in 1967 with "Puppet on a String". Women have dominated the contest since its inception, either performing solo or as a member of a group on 50 of the 67 winning entries as of 2018. The 2017 win was performed solo by a man, Salvador Sobral (His sister, Luísa Sobral, the song's composer, joined him for the winner's reprise).

The most recent winner of the contest is Netta Barzilai who won the 2018 contest for Israel.^[110]

Songs of Europe

In 1981, a concert television programme was held to commemorate the contest's twenty-fifth anniversary. The event, entitled Songs of Europe, took place in Mysen, Norway, featuring nearly all the winners of the contest, from 1956 to 1981. It was hosted by Rolf Kirkvaag and Titten Tei.

Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest

In 2005, the EBU had agreed with the Danish broadcaster, DR, to produce a programme to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the contest. The show, entitled Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest after Cliff Richard's 1968 entry for the United Kingdom, was held in Copenhagen, and featured a competition among fourteen of the most popular songs from the last 50 years of the contest. A telephone vote was held to determine the most popular Eurovision song of all-time, which was won by the ABBA song "Waterloo" (winner for Sweden in 1974).^[111] The event was hosted by the 1997 Contest winner for the United Kingdom, Katrina Leskanich, and Latvia's representative on its debut at the 2000 Contest, Renārs Kaupers.

Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits

In 2015, the EBU had decided again to commemorate the contest and agreed with the United Kingdom's broadcaster, BBC, to produce a show for the 60th anniversary of the contest, after evaluating several proposals from member broadcasters in regards to the anniversary celebration beyond the 2015 Contest in May.^{[112][113][114]} The event, entitled Eurovision Song Contest's Greatest Hits, took place at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, London^[115] and featured fifteen acts from thirteen countries in the official line-up.^[116][117] Unlike the 50th anniversary show in 2005 which was broadcast live, this event did not feature a competition and was pre-recorded to be televised across Europe and other EBU members on various dates schedule by the respective broadcasters. The event was hosted by the British commentator for Eurovision, Graham Norton, and the host of the 2013 and 2016 Contest, Petra Mede.

Musical style and presentation

Because the songs play to such a diverse supranational audience with contrasting musical tastes, and countries want to be able to appeal to as many people as possible to gain votes, this has led to the music of the contest being characterised as a "mishmash of power ballads, ethnic rhythms and bubblegum pop".^[12] This well-established pattern, however, was notably broken in 2006 with Finnish metal band Lordi's victory.^[123] As Eurovision is a visual show, many performances attempt to attract the attention of the voters through means other than the music, notably elaborate lighting sequences and pyrotechnics; sometimes leading to bizarre on-stage theatrics and costumes, including the use of revealing dress.^[13]

Political and geographical voting

The contest has long been accused by some of political bias; the perception is that judges and televoters allocate points based on their nation's relationship to the other countries, rather than the musical merits of the songs.^[124] According to one study of Eurovision voting patterns, certain countries tend to form "clusters" or "cliques" by frequently voting in the same way.^[67] Another study concludes that as of 2006, voting blocs have, on at least two occasions, crucially affected the outcome of the contest.^[125] On the other hand, others argue that certain countries allocate disproportionately high points to others because of similar musical tastes and cultures and because they speak similar languages,^[126][127] and are therefore more likely to appreciate each other's music. A recent study in ^[128] presents a new methodological approach which allows an analysis of the whole time-line of the contest (from 1957-2017) to investigate collusion and the cluster blocks which have been changing. It allows the analysis to find collusive associations over periods where the voting scheme is non-homogeneous in the time window chosen, and the results show a changing pattern in the collusive tendencies previously discussed. The current research into the analysis of the voting patterns has been used in notable sources, such as the Economist, for investigating whether over 10 year periods such collusion is increasing or decreasing ^{[129] [130]}.

The collusion between countries in Eurovision 1997 to 2017

Mutual neglect of score allocations in the Eurovision 2010 to 2015

Produced using the methods presented in ^[128] and ^[131] a network of the significant score deviations can be viewed over a time period of interest.

As an example, Terry Wogan, the United Kingdom's well-known presenter of Eurovision since 1980 and one of the only three presenters mentioned by name during the contest proper^[132] stood down from the BBC One's broadcast in 2008 saying "The voting used to be about the songs. Now it's about national prejudices. We [the United Kingdom] are on our own. We had a very good song, a very good singer, we came joint last. I don't want to be presiding over another debacle".^[133]

Another influential factor is the high proportion of expatriates and ethnic minorities living in certain countries. Although judges and televoters cannot vote for their own country's entry, expatriates can vote for their country of origin.

The total numbers of points to be distributed by each country are equal, irrespective of the country's population. Thus voters in countries with larger populations have less power as individuals to influence the result of the contest than those voting in smaller countries. For example, San Marino holds the same voting power as Russia despite the vast geographic and population differences between them.

To try to reduce the effect of voting blocs, national juries were re-introduced alongside televoting in the final in 2009: each contributing 50% of the vote.^[134] This hybrid system was expanded in 2010 to also be implemented in the semi-finals.^[135] However, since 1994 no country has won two years in a row, and semi-finals have also been won by different countries, until 2012 when Sweden won the second semi-final in 2011 and 2012. Although many of them used to give their 12 points to the same country each year, like Cyprus and Greece, it has been noticed that factors such as the sets of other high votes received (7, 8 or 10 points) and the number of countries giving points to a specific entry, also highly affect the final positions.

An overview of the overall preference between countries that exhibits patterns of high score allocations is a question that appears frequently and recently a new study investigates the question of 'neglect' in the competition. The concept of 'neglect' here is represented by countries which produce patterns of biased low score allocations to certain countries. Together these two patterns provide a better view of the competition's intrinsic country pair biases. Result of such a study are presented in, ^[131]. From the analysis it can be seen that countries which exhibit these biases do not receive a penalization from other participants and it presents itself as a means to accumulate more points by establishing these partnerships.

Running order of the participating songs

From 2013 onwards, the final and the semi-finals running order of the competing performances at the semi-finals and the final has been decided by the show's producers and then approved by the EBU Executive Supervisor and the Reference Group. An "allocation draw" occurs for the final and the semi-finals with each nation drawing to perform in the first or second half.^[136] Prior to 2013, the order was decided at random (though when the host nation performs is still decided at random, to ensure fairness).^[136] There is some statistical evidence that the contest's results were positively related to the running number in 2009-2012. The change in procedure was aimed to make the show more exciting and ensure that all contestants had a chance to stand out, preventing entries that are too similar from cancelling each other out.^[137] The decision elicited mixed reactions from both fans and participating broadcasters.^{[138][139][140][141]} Some fans have alleged that there is a risk of corruption and that the order can be manipulated to benefit certain countries, since the running order is considered to be of importance to the result.^[142][143] As of the 2018 contest, the only regularly contested positions in the running order that have never won the contest are numbers 2 and 16, with position number 21 winning for the first time in 2016. Position 17 has the most victories, with 7. Positions 25, 26 and 27 have not won either, but there have been very few finals with that many participants.