Eurovision Song Contest 2004

Eurovision Song Contest 2004 "Under The Same Sky"
Dates
Semi-final	12 May 2004
Final	15 May 2004
Host
Venue	Abdi İpekçi Arena Istanbul, Turkey
Presenter(s)	Korhan Abay Meltem Cumbul
Director	Sven Stojanovic
Executive supervisor	Svante Stockselius
Host broadcaster	Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT)
Opening act	Sertab Erener
Interval act	ABBA: The Last Video Fire of Anatolia
Participants
Number of entries	36
Debuting countries	Albania  Andorra  Belarus  Serbia and Montenegro
Returning countries	Denmark  Finland  Lithuania  Macedonia  Monaco   Switzerland
Withdrawing countries	None
Participation map      Participating countries     Did not qualify from the semi final     Countries that participated in the past but not in 2004
Vote
Voting system	Each country awarded 12, 10, 8-1 point(s) to their 10 favourite songs
Nul points	Switzerland (in the Semi-final)
Winning song	Ukraine "Wild Dances"
Eurovision Song Contest
◄2003 • 2004 • 2005►

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 (TRT).

Ukrainian singer Ruslana won the contest with "Wild Dances". It is notable that this was only Ukraine's second participation in the contest. This was also the third year in a row in which the contest was won by a woman, performing a song composed at least partially by herself (being the previous two Marie N and Sertab Erener, which co-wrote their winning songs for the 2002 and 2003 contests).

To accommodate the increasing number of countries who wished to participate, a semi-final was introduced. The countries which didn't qualify for the final are normally calculate like participating countries, as well semi finals are a part of the competition. For the second consecutive year, no returning acts were present - only the sixth time (including 1956) in the history of the contest that this happened and it was the first time this had happened in two consecutive years.

Hosts

Location

Abdi İpekçi Arena, Istanbul - host venue of the 2004 contest.

The contest was held in Istanbul following Turkey's victory in the 2003 contest in Riga, Latvia with Sertab Erener's "Everyway That I Can". Originally the Mydonose Showland was chosen by TRT to host the event, but was changed to the Abdi İpekçi Arena as the contest approached due to its bigger capacity.^[1] 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 (Volare)", originally by Domenico Modugno. Sertab Erener returned to the stage in the final to perform "Everyway That I Can", the 2003 winning song, and one of her new songs called "Leave". Sertab also interviewed contestants in the green room. The Turkish dance ensemble Fire of Anatolia performed as the interval act.^[1] 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.

Firsts

The contest's new official generic logo was used for the first time this year, with the heart-shaped flag in the centre due to be changed for future contests. The slogan for Istanbul's contest was "Under The Same Sky", which communicated the importance of a united Europe and Turkish integration.

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 (all other presenters were preceded with their country being highlighted on a map). This was due to Turkey's recognition of the northern half of the island as an independent republic (not recognised by any other state). It is likely Turkey pulled out of showing the map because it would have only highlighted the southern portion of the island, and thus angered the international community.^[1]

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 more in years to come, in 2004 to save time the hosts only re-read each score in one language. 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 on 1994 and 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, all songs in the top 3 got over 200 points.

Participating countries

This year's 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. Under this new format, byes into the final were given to the 'Big 4'; France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom (as the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union) and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2003 contest. Andorra, Albania, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro participated in the Contest for the first time, with Monaco returning after a 25-year absence. Luxembourg were due to return after an absence of 11 years, but later pulled out after money issues arose between RTL and the EBU. All participating countries had the right to vote in both the qualifying round and the grand final. This was the first year in which all 36 participating countries voted based on a public phone vote. However France, Poland and Russia did not broadcast the semi-final (as they were not participating in it) and therefore did not give votes for it like the other thirty-three countries.

Problems

Just before the Slovenian entry was about to be performed, the Turkish broadcaster accidentally took a commercial break which meant the Slovenian song was not heard by Turkish viewers and consequently, Turkey gave no votes for the song.^[1] There were technical problems when in a short hiatus halfway through the songs, (used for the advertising break), the hosts tried to contact various parties in Europe. They tried contacting Germany, Spain and Turkey, but in the end were only able to get a response from Germany. During the Romanian postcard introduction, the information for the Romanian entry appeared on the screen, but was quickly taken away. A final minor hiccup occurred when, on her way to present the winner the trophy, Sertab Erener got her shoe stuck in a speaker grill by the side of the stage and had to be freed by stagehands. However this didn't delay proceedings, and other than the above the show ran smoothly.

An hour after the semi-final had been aired, the European Broadcasting Union discovered that there had been problems with the vote counting in Monaco and Croatia. Digame, an affiliate of Deutsche Telekom, who had been responsible for processing all the votes(from 2004), reported that they had encountered problems with their calculation software, and there was a problem with text message voting in Croatia. When the votes were counted, results showed that Croatia had awarded themselves 4 points, which is against Eurovision rules. Later, an official EBU statement read that there had been technical problems at the side of the Croatian mobile service provider, who neglected to delete the illegal votes from the results. Consequently, some votes were not counted in the results announced at the end of the broadcast of the semi-final. When the results were corrected to include these additional votes, they were found not to have affected which countries had qualified for the Final.^[1]

Format

Voting structure

Every country in the competition, including those who did not qualify for the final, were allowed to vote for other countries. After all performances were completed, each country opened their phone lines to allow their viewers to vote for their favourite song. Voting for the country in which you are situated is not allowed, however. Each country awarded points based on the number of votes cast for each song: the song which received the most viewer votes was awarded 12 points, the second 10 points, the third 8 points and then 7, 6, 5, etc. down to 1.

In the event of a tie, the number of countries to vote for the tying songs would be counted, and the song having the most countries awarding points to it, would be the winner. In the event of a further tie, then the previously used method of counting back on the number of 12 points, 10 points etc., would be used to find an eventual winner.

Results

Semi-final

The semi-final was held on 12 May 2004 at 21:00 (CET). 22 countries performed and all participants voted except France, Poland and Russia. This was the first ever semi-final in Eurovision history.

Shaded countries qualified for the Eurovision Final

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[2]	Place	Points
01	Finland	Jari Sillanpää	"Takes 2 to Tango"	English	14	51
02	Belarus	Aleksandra and Konstantin	"My Galileo"	English	19	10
03	Switzerland	Piero Esteriore & The MusicStars	"Celebrate"	English	22	0
04	Latvia	Fomins and Kleins	"Dziesma par laimi"	Latvian	17	23
05	Israel	David D'Or	"Leha'amin" (להאמין)	Hebrew, English	12	57
06	Andorra	Marta Roure	"Jugarem a estimar-nos"	Catalan	18	12
07	Portugal	Sofia Vitória	"Foi magia"	Portuguese	15	38
08	Malta	Julie and Ludwig	"On Again... Off Again"	English	8	74
09	Monaco	Maryon	"Notre planète"	French	19	10
10	Greece	Sakis Rouvas	"Shake It"	English	3	238
11	Ukraine	Ruslana	"Wild Dances"	English, Ukrainian	2	256
12	Lithuania	Linas and Simona	"What's Happened to Your Love?"	English	16	26
13	Albania	Anjeza Shahini	"The Image of You"	English	4	167
14	Cyprus	Lisa Andreas	"Stronger Every Minute"	English	5	149
15	Macedonia	Toše Proeski	"Life"	English	10	71
16	Slovenia	Platin	"Stay Forever"	English	21	5
17	Estonia	Neiokõsõ	"Tii"	Võro	11	57
18	Croatia	Ivan Mikulić	"You Are the Only One"	English	9	72
19	Denmark	Tomas Thordarson	"Shame on You"	English	13	56
20	Serbia and Montenegro	Željko Joksimović & Ad-Hoc Orchestra	"Lane moje" (Лане моје)	Serbian	1	263
21	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Deen	"In the Disco"	English	7	133
22	Netherlands	Re-Union	"Without You"	English	6	146

A new ABBA video was shown in the semi final, briefly outlining how ABBA started and what the response was of the first record company they approached. It featured small puppets of the band performing snippets of their songs (the voices being the ones of the band) and featured Rik Mayall as the record company manager.^[1] This was cut from the Eurovision Song Contest DVD and released separately. References to the video that were made running up to the showing of it were also cut.

Final

The finalists were:

• the four automatic qualifiers France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom;
• the top 10 countries from the 2003 contest (other than the automatic qualifiers);
• the top 10 countries from the 2004 semi-final.

The final was held on 15 May 2004 at 21:00 (CET) and was won by Ukraine.

Countries in bold automatically qualified for the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 Final.

Draw	Country	Artist	Song	Language[2]	Place	Points
01	Spain	Ramón	"Para llenarme de ti"	Spanish	10	87
02	Austria	Tie Break	"Du bist"	German	21	9
03	Norway	Knut Anders Sørum	"High"	English	24	3
04	France	Jonatan Cerrada	"À chaque pas"	French, Spanish	15	40
05	Serbia and Montenegro	Željko Joksimović & Ad-Hoc Orchestra	"Lane moje" (Лане моје)	Serbian	2	263
06	Malta	Julie and Ludwig	"On Again... Off Again"	English	12	50
07	Netherlands	Re-Union	"Without You"	English	20	11
08	Germany	Max	"Can't Wait Until Tonight"	English, Turkish	8	93
09	Albania	Anjeza Shahini	"The Image of You"	English	7	106
10	Ukraine	Ruslana	"Wild Dances"	English, Ukrainian	1	280
11	Croatia	Ivan Mikulić	"You Are the Only One"	English	12	50
12	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Deen	"In the Disco"	English	9	91
13	Belgium	Xandee	"1 Life"	English	22	7
14	Russia	Julia Savicheva	"Believe Me"	English	11	67
15	Macedonia	Toše Proeski	"Life"	English	14	47
16	Greece	Sakis Rouvas	"Shake It"	English	3	252
17	Iceland	Jónsi	"Heaven"	English	19	16
18	Ireland	Chris Doran	"If My World Stopped Turning"	English	22	7
19	Poland	Blue Café	"Love Song"	English, Spanish	17	27
20	United Kingdom	James Fox	"Hold On to Our Love"	English	16	29
21	Cyprus	Lisa Andreas	"Stronger Every Minute"	English	5	170
22	Turkey	Athena	"For Real"	English	4	195
23	Romania	Sanda	"I Admit"	English	18	18
24	Sweden	Lena Philipsson	"It Hurts"	English	5	170

Voting during the final

Countries revealed their votes in the following order:

Score sheet

Semi-final

		Televoting Results
	Finland	51		7			1				6			7	3			5				3			6	2			3			8
	Belarus	10												2								1	2												5
	Switzerland	0
	Latvia	23						4						5						4	2		6		2
	Israel	57	3	5	1		2	3		3	2	1	2		4	2	2	3									6	2		7	5			4
	Andorra	12													12
	Portugal	38	12				4		7						6										1						8
	Malta	74	5	6		4		1					4	10			5	1	1	1	6	2	7	7		4		3		4			1		2
	Monaco	10	4	2							4
	Greece	238	8	12	5	5	10	8	3	10	12	10	3	4	7	5	12		6	2	12	6	8	6	4	7	12	6	5	8	12	4	4	12	10
	Ukraine	256	10	3	4	7	8	12	2	8	8	6	6	12	10	8	7	7	8	10	10	10	12	10	5	8	10	7	7	12	7	6	8	8
	Lithuania	26						2			7							2		3	1			8			3
	Albania	167	6		7	6	5		10	6	1	8	7	1	2	6	6	8	7	5	4	4		5	3	12	8	5	8	2	6	7	5	6	1
	Cyprus	149	2		6		6	6	1	2		4	5	6	1	7	10	12	2	8	3	8	4	3	12		5	10	4	3	1	3	3	5	7
	Macedonia	71		8	2	8			5	12		3	1					4	5								1	1			4	2	6	3	6
	Slovenia	5				1													3							1
	Estonia	57		1						4						12	1					7	10	12					1	5		1			3
	Croatia	72			8	10		7	6	5		5				1							3	1		6		4		1			7		8
	Denmark	56				3					3			3		4					5	12			10		2		6		2	5		1
	Serbia and Montenegro	263	1	4	12	12	7	10	12		10	12	10		8	10	8	10	12	6	8		1	4	7	10	4	12	10	10	10	12	12	7	12
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	133		10	10		3		8	7		7	12				4		10	7						5		8	12			10	10	10
	Netherlands	146	7		3	2	12	5	4	1	5	2	8	8	5	3	3	6	4	12	7	5	5	2	8	3	7		2	6	3		2	2	4
	Rows are ordered by appearance, columns are ordered by voting order.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the semi-final:

Final

		Televoting Results
	Spain	87	12				7	2	6		7	2					8		3			8	1			3	1	3	4		1	12	5				2
	Austria	9															4		5
	Norway	3																																	3
	France	40	7	1			10								4											12						2		4
	Serbia and Montenegro	263	2	7	12	12	3	7	12		10	10	7	1	6	10	10	3	8	12	3	7	7	2	5	1	10	6	10	6	5	7	8	10	12	12	8	12
	Malta	50	6	3		1							1	6				2	1	2	6	4		4	6		3				3	1						1
	Netherlands	11					6							3														2
	Germany	93		2	10	3			10					2	12		7	4		1	4			1		7			3	1	6	8	4			3	5
	Albania	106			5	4	1		7	8		5	4			3	1	1	10	6	2		4		1		12	10	1	3			1		7	4	6
	Ukraine	280	10	5	4	6	5	10		10	8	6	5	12	8	8	2	5	7	8	7	12	12	12	12	6	8	8	7	7	12	10	6	12	10	8	12
	Croatia	50			3	10		5	3	5		1				1											5							5		5		7
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	91		10	7				5	6			8							10						4	4		2	10					8	10	7
	Belgium	7	1								1																		5
	Russia	67						12		1	6			8		4			2			6		8	10													10
	Macedonia	47		6		8			1	12										5								1								7	4	3
	Greece	252	8	12	2	5	8	6	4	7	12	7	3	5	7	6	6	12		7	5	10	6	10	7	10	7	12	6	2	7	6	12	7	4	6	10	8
	Iceland	16											2			2										5				5				2
	Ireland	7																7
	Poland	27									2	4			1				4				3	7											1			5
	United Kingdom	29						1						4							8		2		3			4			2		2	1	2
	Cyprus	170	4		6		4	8	2	3		8	6	7	3	7	5	10	12	4	10	3	10	5	4	2		7	8	4	4	3	3	6	6	1	1	4
	Turkey	195	3	8	8	7	12	3	8	2	4	12	10		2	5	12	6	6	3	1	2	5	3	2	8	6		12	8	8		10	8	5			6
	Romania	18									3				10							1										4
	Sweden	170	5	4	1	2	2	4		4	5	3	12	10	5	12	3	8			12	5	8	6	8		2	5		12	10	5	7	3		2	3	2
Rows are ordered by appearance, columns are ordered by voting order.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

AP Awards

Category	Country	Song	Performer(s)	Final result	Points
Artist Award	Macedonia	"Life"	Toše Proeski	14th	47
Composer Award	United Kingdom	"Hold Onto Our Love"	James Fox	16th	29
Performance Award	Ukraine	"Wild Dances"	Ruslana	1st	280
Song Award	Portugal	"Foi Magia"	Sofia Vitória	15th (in semifinal)	38 (in semifinal)

Marcel Bezençon Awards

The Marcel Bezençon Awards were first handed out during the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 in Tallinn, Estonia honoring the best competing songs in the final. Founded by Christer Björkman (Sweden's representative in the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest and current Head of Delegation for Sweden) and Richard Herrey (member of the Herreys, Eurovision Song Contest 1984 winner from Sweden), the awards are named after the creator of the annual competition, Marcel Bezençon.^[3] The awards are divided into 3 categories; Press Award; Artistic Award; and Composer Award.^[4]

Category	Country	Song	Performer(s)	Composer(s)	Final result	Points
Artists Award (Voted by previous winners)	Ukraine	"Wild Dances"	Ruslana	Oleksandr Ksenofontov Ruslana Lyzhychko	1st	280
Composer Award	Cyprus	"Stronger Every Minute"	Lisa Andreas	Mike Konnaris (m & l)	5th	170
Press Award	Serbia and Montenegro	"Lane moje" (Лане моје)	Željko Joksimović	Željko Joksimović	2nd	263

Commentators

Spokespersons

Each country appointed a spokesperson to announce the points of each country.^[29]

Official album

Eurovision Song Contest: Istanbul 2004
Compilation album by Eurovision Song Contest
Released	26 April 2004
Genre	Pop
Length	54:03 (CD 1) 54:18 (CD 2)
Label	EMI / CMC
Eurovision Song Contest chronology
Eurovision Song Contest: Riga 2003 (2003) Eurovision Song Contest: Istanbul 2004 (2004) Eurovision Song Contest: Kyiv 2005 (2005)

Eurovision Song Contest: Istanbul 2004 was the official compilation album of the 2004 Contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by EMI Records and CMC International on 26 April 2004. The album featured all 36 songs that entered in the 2004 contest, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify into the grand final.^[30]

References

External links

Wikinews has related news: Eurovision '04 winner Ruslana discusses her paths as singer, spokesmodel, stateswoman and source of inspiration

• Media related to Eurovision Song Contest 2004 at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website
• EBU press notice regarding voting problems in the semi-final
• Details about the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul
• Video Clips (BBC Eurovision 2004) (RealPlayer)

Coordinates: 41°00′44″N 28°58′34″E / 41.01222°N 28.97611°E / 41.01222; 28.97611