Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest (French: Concours Eurovision de la chanson), often shortened to ESC or Eurovision, is the longest-running annual TV song competition, held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures having been quoted in recent years as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the USA and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event. In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia would return in 2016. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, via the Eurovision website.

Eurovision Song Contest 1960

The Eurovision Song Contest 1960 was the fifth edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was held on Tuesday 29 March 1960 in London. Although the Netherlands had won the contest in 1959, the Netherlands Television Foundation declined to host another contest so soon after staging the event in 1958. The honour of hosting the contest therefore passed to the United Kingdom, which had come second in 1959. Therefore, the BBC chose Catherine Boyle (as she was then known) to be the mistress of ceremonies at the contest for the first time. France's win this year was their second in the contest. The contest was won by France with the song "Tom Pillibi", performed by Jacqueline Boyer.

Location

The 1960 Eurovision Song Contest was hosted in London. The Royal Festival Hall, the venue for the 1960 contest, is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge.

Eurovision Song Contest 2009

The Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was the 54th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest and was hosted by Russia after their win in 2008. It took place between 12 and 16 May 2009 at the Olympic Indoor Arena in Moscow, Russia.

The contest was won by Norway's Alexander Rybak with his self-penned "Fairytale", which received a record-breaking 387 points out of 492, at the time the highest total score in the history of the contest and with a margin of 169 points over the second place which went to Iceland. Third place went to Azerbaijan, fourth to Turkey, and the United Kingdom taking 5th, seeing their best placing since 2002.

After criticism of the voting system after the 2007 Contest, changes in the voting procedure were made with the re-introduction of a national jury alongside televoting while the format of the semi-finals remained the same. Forty-two countries participated in the contest; Slovakia announced that it would return to the contest, while San Marino withdrew due to financial issues. Latvia and Georgia originally announced their intention to withdraw, but it was later stated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that both countries would indeed participate. However, Georgia later decided to withdraw after the EBU rejected its selected song as being a breach of contest rules.