Eurovision Song Contest 2004

Location

Istanbul was chosen as the host city of the 2004 edition following Turkey's victory in the contest in Riga, Latvia with "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Originally the Mydonose Showland, an entertainment center in the form of a giant pyramid tent near Atatürk International Airport, was chosen by Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to host the event, but the venue was later changed to the Abdi İpekçi Arena as the contest approached due to its bigger capacity. The Mydonose Showland, later renamed the Istanbul Show Center, was demolished in 2009 after a fire destroyed it in April that year. The Abdi İpekçi Arena was closed after the 2016/2017 basketball season and was demolished in early 2018.

A number of other venues in the city were reported as possible venues, these included Ataköy Athletics Arena and Istanbul Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC), the latter of which lost out to Mydonose Showland. Istanbul Chamber of Commerce president Mehmet Yıldırım offered the World Trade Center Istanbul (WTCI) as a venue for the event and confirmed that the Chamber would also provide financial support for the contest's organisation.

Participants

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'; , , , and the –whose broadcasters were the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)– and the ten highest placed finishers in the contest.

, , , and participated in the contest for the first time, with returning after a 25-year absence. were due to return after an absence of 11 years, but later pulled out after money issues arose between RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg (RTL) and the EBU. was also due to return after last participating in 1998, but ultimately they did not take part in the contest. Hungary would eventually return to the contest the following year, while Luxembourg would not return to the contest until 2024.

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. However , , and 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-language Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF) did not broadcast the semi-final, but the Dutch-language Vlaamse 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.

Stefan Raab, who had represented , provided backing vocals for his country.

Format

Visual design

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.

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.

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.

Contest overview

Semi-final

The semi-final was held on 12 May 2004 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST) . 22 countries performed and all participants voted except , , and who opted not to broadcast the show. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

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.

Final

The finalists were:

• the four automatic qualifiers , , , and the ;
• 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 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST) and was won by . 24 countries performed and all 36 participants voted.

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 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.

Ukraine won with 280 points. Serbia and Montenegro came second with 263 points, with Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Sweden, Albania, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Spain completing the top ten. Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Ireland and Norway occupied the bottom five positions. The latter came last for the 10th time and would go on to place last twice more in the next 20 years.

Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson to announce its respective country's points in the final. The voting order in the 2004 contest was determined alphabetically by each country's ISO two-letter country code.

1. AndorraPati Molné
2. Albania
3. Austria
4. Bosnia and HerzegovinaMija Martina
5. Belgium
6. BelarusDenis Kurian
7. SwitzerlandEmel Aykanat
8. Serbia and MontenegroNataša Miljković
9. CyprusLoukas Hamatsos
10. GermanyThomas Anders
11. DenmarkCamilla Ottesen
12. EstoniaMaarja-Liis Ilus
13. SpainAnne Igartiburu
14. FinlandAnna Stenlund
15. France
16. United KingdomLorraine Kelly
17. GreeceAlexis Kostalas
18. CroatiaBarbara Kolar
19. IrelandJohnny Logan
20. IsraelMerav Miller
21. IcelandSigrún Ósk Kristjánsdóttir
22. Lithuania
23. LatviaLauris Reiniks
24. MonacoAnne Allegrini
25. North MacedoniaKarolina Petkovska
26. MaltaClaire Agius
27. NetherlandsEsther Hart
28. NorwayIngvild Helljesen
29. Poland
30. Portugal
31. RomaniaAndreea Marin
32. RussiaYana Churikova
33. SwedenJovan Radomir
34. SloveniaPeter Poles
35. TurkeyMeltem Ersan Yazgan
36. UkrainePavlo Shylko

Detailed voting results

Semi-final

12 points

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

Final

12 points

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

Broadcasts

Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.

Incidents

Just before the n 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. 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 n 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 in and . 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.

This year was also notable as it was the first year that voted for and the second year in a row that Cyprus voted for Turkey. When the 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 the northern half of the island as an independent republic, which is not recognised by any other state.

Marcel Bezençon Awards

The Marcel Bezençon Awards, a series of awards held concurrently to the main contest, honour and celebrate the participants of the final of that year's Eurovision Song Contest. Named after one of the people influential in the creation of the contest, and created by two former Swedish Eurovision participants, Christer Björkman () and Richard Herrey ( as a member of the winning group Herreys), the inaugural awards were presented at part of the . Three awards were presented as part of the third edition of the awards in 2004, with the winner of each award determined by the collective votes of a different group of individuals. The Fan Award, which was presented in the previous two editions, was replaced by a Composer Award for the 2004 contest.

• The Press Award for the best competing song, as determined by the accredited press and media, was awarded to the , "Lane moje" performed by Željko Joksimović and Ad Hoc Orchestra
• The Artistic Award for the best artistic performance, as determined by previous Eurovision winners, was awarded to the , "Wild Dances" performed by Ruslana
• The Composer Award for the best composition, as determined by the participating songwriters in the final, was awarded to the , "Stronger Every Minute", written by Mike Connaris and performed by Lisa Andreas

The winners each received a hand-blown glass trophy designed by Karin Hammar and created at the , which were handed out backstage prior to the contest proper.

Official album

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.

Charts

Notes

References

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