Eurovision Song Contest 2004

Eurovision Song Contest 2004 logo.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the forty-ninth Eurovision Song Contest and took place on May 12, 2004 and May 15, 2004, in Istanbul, Turkey. Meltem Cumbul and Korhan Abay were the presenters.

It was the first Eurovision Song Contest to be a two-day event, with one qualifying round held on a Wednesday and the grand finale held on the following Saturday. Under this new format, byes into the final were given to the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain (as the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union) and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2003 contest. It was also the first contest to be broadcast in high definition format. Andorra, Albania and Belarus participated in the Contest for the first time, Serbia and Montenegro returned after a 12-year hiatus and Monaco returned after an absence of 25 years.

All participating countries had the right to vote in both the qualifying round and the grand finale. This was the first year in which all 36 participating countries voted based on a public phone vote.

On March 23, 2004, two draws were held to determine the running-order for the Semi-Final and Final events. A third draw took place, immediately following the Semi-Final on May 12, 2004, to determine the running order of the ten qualifying songs in the Final.

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 the votes from Monaco, reported that they had encountered problems with their calculation software, and there was a problem with text message voting in Croatia. Consequently, some votes were not counted in the results announced at the end of the Semi-Final broadcast. When the results were corrected, to include these additional votes, they were found not to have affected which countries had qualified for the Final.

The contest was won by the Ukrainian entrant, Ruslana Lyzhichko, with the song Wild Dances, which won 280 points. Some commentators suggested that, true to Eurovision tradition, her victory could be attributed more to her dance routine and revealing attire than to the quality of the song. Allegations have been made by some, such as Terry Wogan, that bloc voting from Balkan and eastern European countries distorted the results. It is also notable that this was only the second participation for Ukraine.

Contents

Semi-final results

Country (Language)	Artist	Song (Translation)	Place	Points
Albania	Anjeza Shahini	The Image Of You	4	167
Andorra	Marta Roure	Jugarem a estimar-nos (We'll Be Playing at Loving Each Other)	18	12
Belarus	Aleksandra & Konstantin	My Gallileo	19	10
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Deen	In the Disco	7	133
Croatia	Ivan Mikulić	You Are The Only One	9	72
Cyprus	Lisa Andreas	Stronger Every Minute	5	149
Denmark	Tomas Thordarson	Shame On You	13	56
Estonia	Neiokõsõ	Tii (The Way)	12	57
Finland	Jari Sillanpää	Takes 2 to Tango	14	51
Greece	Sakis Rouvas	Shake it	3	238
Israel	David D'or	To Believe	11	57
Latvia	Fomins & Kleins	Dziesma par laimi (Song About Happiness)	17	23
Lithuania	Linas & Simona	What's Happened to Your Love?	16	26
Republic of Macedonia	Tose Proeski	Life	10	71
Malta	Julie & Ludwig	On Again... Off Again	8	74
Monaco	Märyon	Notre planète (Our Planet)	20	10
Netherlands	Re-union	Without You	6	146
Portugal	Sofia Vitória	Foi Magia (It Was Magic)	15	38
Serbia and Montenegro	Željko Joksimović	Lane Moje (My Sweetheart)	1	263
Slovenia	Platin	Stay Forever	21	5
Switzerland	Piero & The Musicstars	Celebrate	22	0
Ukraine	Ruslana	Wild Dances	2	256
Venue: Abdi İpekçi Stadium - Istanbul, Turkey
The table is ordered by the countries' names.

NB - The exact scores of the nations that qualified were not published until after the final, to avoid bias.

Final results

Country (Language)	Artist	Song (Translation)	Place	Points
Albania	Anjeza Shahini	The Image Of You	7	106
Austria	Tie-break	Du bist (You Are)	21	9
Belgium	Xandee	1 Life	22	7
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Deen	In the Disco	9	91
Croatia	Ivan Mikulić	You Are The Only One	12	50
Cyprus	Lisa Andreas	Stronger Every Minute	5	170
France	Jonatan Cerrada	A chaque pas (Every Step)	15	40
Germany	Max	Can't Wait Until Tonight	8	93
Greece	Sakis Rouvas	Shake it	3	252
Iceland	Jónsi	Heaven	19	16
Ireland	Chris Doran	If My World Stops Turning	22	7
Republic of Macedonia	Tose Proeski	Life	14	47
Malta	Julie & Ludwig	On Again... Off Again	12	50
Netherlands	Re-union	Without You	20	11
Norway	Knut Anders Sørum	High	24	3
Poland	Blue Cafe	Love Song	17	27
Romania	Sanda	I Admit	18	18
Russia	Julia Savicheva	Believe Me	11	67
Serbia and Montenegro	Željko Joksimović	Lane Moje (My Sweetheart)	2	263
Spain	Ramón	Para llenarme de ti (To Be Filled By You)	10	87
Sweden	Lena Philipsson	It Hurts	6	170
Turkey	Athena	For Real	4	195
Ukraine	Ruslana	Wild Dances	1	280
United Kingdom	James Fox	Hold on to our Love	16	29
Venue: Abdi İpekçi Stadium - Istanbul, Turkey
The table is ordered by the countries' names.

Voting structure

Every country in the competition, including those who did not qualify for the final, was allowed to vote for the winners. After all performances were completed, each country opened their phonelines to allow their viewers to nominate their favourite song. Voting for your own country is not allowed, however.

According to the way in which viewers placed their vote, each country awarded points: the country 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. This system allows for all countries to get at least a couple of points (regardless of whether they win the favour of any particular country).

Score sheet

	Missing image ESCAndorraJ-.png AD				Missing image ESCBelgiumJ.png BE	Missing image ESCBelarusJ.png BY		Missing image ESCSerbiaJ-.png CS				Missing image ESCEstoniaJ.png EE				Missing image ESCUnitedKingdomJ.png GB				Missing image ESCIsraelJ.png IL				Missing image ESCMonacoJ.png MC	Missing image ESCFYRMacedoniaJ-.png MK		Missing image ESCNetherlandsJ.png NL					Missing image ESCRussiaJ.png RU	Missing image ESCSwedenJ.png SE	Missing image ESCSloveniaJ.png SI	Missing image ESCTurkeyJ.png TR
Spain	12	0	0	0	7	2	6	0	7	2	0	0		0	8	0	3	0	0	8	1	0	0	3	1	3	4	0	1	12	5	0	0	0	2	0
Austria	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Norway	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0
France	7	1	0	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	4	0	0	0	0
Serbia & Montenegro	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	6	3	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	6	0	0	0	2	1	2	6	4	0	4	6	0	3		0	0	3	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
The Netherlands	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Germany	0	2	10	3	0	0	10	0	0		0	2	12	0	7	4	0	1	4	0	0	1	0	7	0	0	3	1	6	8	4	0	0	3	5	0
Albania	0		5	4	1	0	7	8	0	5	4	0	0	3	1	1	10	6	2	0	4	0	1	0	12	10	1	3	0	0	1	0	7	4	6	0
Ukraine	10	5	4	6	5	10	0	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	0	0	3	10	0	5	3	5	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	5	0	7
Bosnia & Herzegovina	0	10	7		0	0	5	6	0	0	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	4	4	0	2	10	0	0	0	0	8	10	7	0
Belgium	1	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Russia	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	1	6	0	0	8	0	4	0	0	2	0	0	6	0	8	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	10
FYR Macedonia	0	6	0	8	0	0	1	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	0		1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	7	4	3
Greece	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	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	5	0	0	0	5	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0
Ireland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	7	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Poland	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	3	7	0	0	0	0	0	0		0	0	0	1	0	0	5
United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	0	0		0	0	8	0	2	0	3	0	0	4	0	0	2	0	2	1	2	0	0	0
Cyprus	4	0	6	0	4	8	2	3		8	6	7	3	7	5	10	12	4	10	3	10	5	4	2	0	7	8	4	4	3	3	6	6	1	1	4
Turkey	3	8	8	7	12	3	8	2	4	12	10	0	2	5	12	6	6	3	1	2	5	3	2	8	6	0	12	8	8	0	10	8	5	0		6
Romania	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	4		0	0	0	0	0
Sweden	5	4	1	2	2	4	0	4	5	3	12	10	5	12	3	8	0	0	12	5	8	6	8	0	2	5	0	12	10	5	7	3		2	3	2
Rows are ordered by appearance, columns are ordered by voting order.