Thirty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-six in the previous edition.Albania,Andorra,Belarus, andSerbia 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 since1994. Because of this,Denmark,Finland,Lithuania,Macedonia,Monaco, andSwitzerland all returned to the contest, Monaco not having competed since1979.
The winner wasUkraine with the song "Wild Dances", performed byRuslana who wrote it with her husbandOleksandr 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, andCyprus 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 forIreland in 1994 and theUnited Kingdom in 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.
Locations of the suggested venues inIstanbul,Turkey: the chosen venue is marked in blue, while eliminated venues are marked in red
Istanbul was chosen as the host city of the 2004 edition following Turkey's victory in the2003 contest inRiga, Latvia with "Everyway That I Can" bySertab Erener. Originally the Mydonose Showland, an entertainment center in the form of a giant pyramid tent nearAtatürk International Airport, was chosen byTurkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to host the event,[2] but the venue was later changed to theAbdi İpekçi Arena as the contest approached due to its bigger capacity.[1] The Mydonose Showland, later renamed the Istanbul Show Center, was demolished in 2009 after a fire destroyed it in April that year.[3][4] The Abdi İpekçi Arena was closed after the 2016/2017 basketball season and was demolished in early 2018.[5][6]
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Eurovision Song Contest 2004 – Participation summaries by country
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 theUnited Kingdom –whose broadcasters were the largest financial contributors to theEuropean Broadcasting Union (EBU)– and the ten highest placed finishers in the2003 contest.
Andorra,Albania,Belarus, andSerbia and Montenegro participated in the contest for the first time, withMonaco 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 betweenRTL Télé Lëtzebuerg (RTL) and the EBU.Hungary was also due to return after last participating in 1998, but ultimately they did not take part in the contest.[9] Hungary would eventually return to the contestthe following year, while Luxembourg would not return to the contest until2024.
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, in the final. HoweverFrance,Poland, andRussia 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. In Belgium, the French-languageRadio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF) did not broadcast the semi-final, but the Dutch-languageVlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT) did. Monaco's televoting results in the semi-final were rendered invalid and a back-up jury had to be used, but no problems occurred in the final.
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 andTurkish integration.
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.
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.
The top ten of the 2003 contest, who automatically qualify.
The "Big Four" countries, who automatically qualify.
The semi-final was held on 12 May 2004 at 21:00 (CET). 22 countries performed and all participants voted exceptFrance,Poland, andRussia who opted not to broadcast the show.
A new ABBA video was shown in the semi-final, briefly outlining howABBA 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 featuredRik Mayall as the record company manager.[1] 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.
Qualifiers
Results of the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004[12]
the top 10 countries from the2003 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 byUkraine.
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 performed byDomenico 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 ensembleFire of Anatolia performed as the interval act.[1]
Winner
Results of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2004[13]
Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson to announce its respective country's points in the final.[14] The voting order in the 2004 contest was determined alphabetically by each country'sISO two-letter country code.
Just before theSlovenian 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.[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 theRomanian 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 did not 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 inMonaco andCroatia. Digame, an affiliate ofDeutsche 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 withtext 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]
This year was also notable as it was the first year thatTurkey voted forCyprus and the second year in a row that Cyprus voted for Turkey. Whenthe country presented its votes no map of the island was shown although all other presenters were preceded with their country being highlighted on a map. This was probably due to Turkey's recognition of thenorthern half of the island as an independent republic, which is not recognised by any other state.[1]
TheMarcel Bezençon Awards, organised since 2002 by Sweden's then-Head of Delegation and 1992 representativeChrister Björkman, and 1984 winnerRichard Herrey, honours songs in the contest's final.[95] The awards are divided into three categories: the Artistic Award which was voted byprevious winners of the contest, the Composer Award, and the Press Award.[96]
Eurovision Song Contest: Istanbul 2004 was the official compilation album of the 2004 contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released byEMI Records andCMC 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.[97]
^"tv program – srijeda, 12.05.2004" [TV programme – Wednesday, 12 May 2004].Karlovački tjednik (in Croatian).Karlovac, Croatia. 6 May 2004. p. 20. Retrieved21 September 2024 – via Gradske knjižnice "Ivan Goran Kovačić" Karlovac.
^"tv program – subota, 15.05.2004" [TV programme – Saturday, 15 May 2004].Karlovački tjednik (in Croatian).Karlovac, Croatia. 13 May 2004. p. 20. Retrieved21 September 2024 – via Gradske knjižnice "Ivan Goran Kovačić" Karlovac.
^"Rozrywka-TV - Środa 12. V" [Entertainment-TV - Wednesday 12th May](PDF).Kurier Wileński (in Polish). 12 May 2004. p. 10. Retrieved11 June 2024 – via Polonijna Biblioteka Cyfrowa.
^"Sobota 15. V" [Saturday 15th May](PDF).Kurier Wileński (in Polish). 15–17 May 2004. pp. 8–9. Retrieved11 June 2024 – via Polonijna Biblioteka Cyfrowa.
^abThorsson, Leif; Verhage, Martin (2006).Melodifestivalen genom tiderna : de svenska uttagningarna och internationella finalerna (in Swedish). Stockholm: Premium Publishing. pp. 324–325.ISBN91-89136-29-2.
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