| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
The contest's name comes from the Eurovision TV Distribution Network, which is run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and can reach a potential television audience of more than one billion. Any member of the EBU may participate in the contest. This includes also countries of Africa and Asia as well as Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya and Syria. Of these non-European nations, only Israel and Morocco have participated in the contest.
Based on the San Remo Music Festival, the first Eurovision Song Contest was the brainchild of the European Broadcasting Union. The first contest took place May 24, 1956, when seven of the original invitees participated (the other three were disqualified for late entry). The original participants were FranceThe French Republic or France ( French: Republique francaise or France is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents., West GermanyWest Germany was the informal but almost universally used name for the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 until 1990, during which years the Federal Republic did not yet include the eastern part of Germany. Since the German reunification of 1990, the F, ItalyThe Italian Republic or Italy ( Italian: Italia is a country in the south of Europe, consisting mainly of a boot-shaped peninsula together with two large islands in the Mediterranean Sea: Sicily and Sardinia. To the north, where it borders France, Switzer, the NetherlandsDutch redirects here. For other uses, see Dutch (disambiguation). The Netherlands ( Dutch: Nederland is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy. It is located in northwestern Europe and borders the North Sea, Belgium, LuxembourgThe Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (also Luxemburg is a landlocked state in the north-west of the continental European Union, bordered by France, Germany and Belgium. Grand-Duche de LuxembourgGrossherzogtum LuxemburgGroussherzogtum (Grand-Duche) Letzebuerg ( I, BelgiumFor alternate meanings, see Belgium (disambiguation). Belgian redirects here. For the horse breed commonly used as a draft horse, see Belgian. The Kingdom of Belgium ( Dutch: Belgi French: Belgique German: Belgien is a country in Western Europe, bordered, and Switzerland. They were joined the next year by the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Austria ("the Procrastinators"), and in 1959 by Monaco.
The 2002 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Tallinn, Estonia on Saturday 26 June, 2002, hosted by Annely Peebo, an opera singer, and Marko Matvere, an actor.
For the 2002 edition, the Spanish TVE created a reality show Operación Triunfo that showed the selection and training of unknown singers. At the end, one of them would be elected by the public to represent the country in the contest. The format was an enormous success in Spain and is being exported. One of the first of these exports was the Irish You're A Star, run on Radio Teilifís Éireann over Winter 2002/'03 for the 2003 Contest.
The 2003 Eurovision Song Contest was held in Riga, Latvia on Saturday 24 May, 2003, hosted by Marie N, the singer who won the ESC 2002, and Renars Kaupers , a singer whose group competed in the ESC 2000.
Up until 2003 entry to the Eurovision song contest also required the country to have performed with a reasonable amount of success for the previous few years. Because of the size of their contribution to the EBU budget, France, Germany, Spain and the UK automatically qualify regardless of how poorly their songs perform.
At the beginning of 2003 the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided to make the Eurovision Song Contest a two day event as of 2004. This means that the previous restrictions on the number of countries that can participate will be dropped. Any EBU member country will be able to participate in any given year. The new format calls for the 10 most successful countries from the previous year along with the four biggest budget contributors to directly qualify for the final show. The remaining countries go through a qualification round from which the 10 best advance to the 24-nation final show.