Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson) or Eurovision is international song contest which is every year held. In the contest, mostly every European country and some other countries have the chance to participate. Each country can send one artist (or group of artists) with an original song. The countries and the public (by televoting) choose the winner of that year. That winner has to host the next Eurovision Song Contest of the following year.

The ESC is based on the Italian Sanremo Music Festival and is held since 1956, which is one of the longest running television events of the world. The contest is viewed in all participating countries and also in a lot of other countries via television and internet. Between 100 million and 600 million people view the ESC every year. Nearly every European country have participated at least one time, with exception of Liechtenstein and Vatican City, which have no public broadcasting or no interest. Also Australia, Morocco and Israel have taken or take place, although there not European countries. Countries can only participate if they have a public broadcasting.

Originally, a song had to be song in an official language of the participating country. Ireland, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and France had therefore high votes, for English and French are very common languages in Europe. Between 1973 and 1977 and since 1999 all countries can choose whatever language they would like to sing in. Very many countries choose to sing in English. Only some countries, like Italy, Spain and Serbia, choose to sing their own language.

Ireland have won the most times (7), followed by Sweden (6), France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (all 5 times). Some countries haven't won a single contest, which are mostly new countries. Every year just one winner is chosen, only in 1969 there were four winners with the same amount of points. Through the years the voting is challenged. Originally, every participating country had a jury which could give points. Today, also the public at home can vote via SMS or telephone call. These points are combined. Voting for the own country is forbidden. Through the years, a view well-known participating winners became world famous. Examples are the ABBA (for Sweden), Lulu and Bucks Fizz (both for the UK), Celine Dion (for Switzerland), Lena (for Germany) and Dana International (for Israel). With the current voting system from 2016 the highest scoring winner is the Portuguese Salvador Sobral, who won the contest in 2017. Under the previous one it was the Norwegian Alexander Rybak in 2009. If you look at the per cents, the highest scoring participant was Anne Marie David for Luxembourg in 1973, whit getting 80% of the votes.