Tag: Ruslana

Eurovision 2005

This week the 50th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest was held in Kyiv, Ukraine, following the country’s victory at the 2004 contest with the song Wild Dances by Ruslana. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU), the contest was held at the Palace of Sports, and consisted of a semi-final on 19 May, and a final on 21 May 2005. The two live shows were presented by Ukrainian television presenters Maria Efrosinina and Pavlo Shylko.

Thirty-nine countries participated in the contest, three more than the previous record of thirty-six, that took part the year before. Bulgaria and Moldova made their first participation this year, while Hungary returned to the contest after a six-year absence, having last taken part in 1998.

An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was an official pin set, which contains heart-shaped pins with the flags of all thirty-nine participating countries. The EBU also commissioned a book The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History by British/American author John Kennedy O’Connor to celebrate the contest’s fiftieth anniversary. The book was presented on screen during the break between songs 12 and 13 (Serbia and Montenegro, Denmark). The book was published in English, German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Finnish.

During the semi-final, there were a few sound faults, most notably during the Norwegian song, shortly after the intro and also during the Irish song. These were not fixed for the DVD release.

Following Istanbul’s Under The Same Sky, the slogan for the 2005 show was Awakening, which symbolised the awakening of the country and city ready to present itself to Europe. The postcards (short clips shown between performances) for the 2005 show illustrated Ukraine’s culture and heritage along with a more modern and industrial side to the country.This was the first edition to be broadcast in widescreen 16:9 format.

The Netherlands did not qualify for the final on Saturday. My Impossible Dream by Glennis Grace got 53 point and ended as 14th in the semi-final.

The winner was Greece with the song My Number One, performed by Helena Paparizou and written by Manos Psaltakis, Christos Dantis and Natalia Germanou. This was Greece’s first victory in the contest after 31 years of participation. Malta, Romania, Israel and Latvia rounded out the top five. Malta equalled their best result from 2002, while Romania achieved their best result in their Eurovision history. Unusually, all Big Four countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) ended up as the Last Four, all placing in the bottom four positions in the final

Eurovision 2004

This week the 49th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest took place in Istanbul, Turkey, following the country’s victory at the 2003 contest with the song Everyway That I Can by Sertab Erener. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the contest was held at the Abdi İpekçi Arena, and, for the first time, consisted of a semi-final on 12 May, and a final on 15 May 2004. The two live shows were presented by Turkish actors Korhan Abay and Meltem Cumbul. It was the first time that Turkey had hosted the contest, 29 years after the country made its debut, and was also the first time since the 1998 contest in Birmingham that it was not hosted in the host country’s capital city.

Thirty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-six in the previous edition. Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro took part for the first time this year. The old relegation system was replaced with a semi-final format. This was done in order to accommodate the increasing number of countries who wished to participate. The new format allowed all countries to participate every year, rather than being forced to sit out per the relegation rules, which had been the standard since 1994. Because of this, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia, Monaco and Switzerlandall returned to the contest, Monaco not having competed since 1979.

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 who opted not to broadcast the show.

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. Due to copyright purposes, this was cut from the Eurovision Song Contest DVD and released separately. References to the video before it was shown were also cut.

The winner was Ukraine with the song Wild Dances, performed by Ruslana who wrote it with her husband Oleksandr Ksenofontov. This was Ukraine’s first victory in the contest, only one year after the country made its debut in 2003. Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Sweden rounded out the top five. Due to the expansion of the contest, this year was the first time in which a non-winning entry scored over 200 points. Prior to this contest, only the winning entries in 1994 and 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, the top 3 songs all got over 200 points. An official CD was released and, for the first time, the entire contest was released on DVD which included the semi-final and the final.