Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song contest is probably the biggest musical event in Europe that has been occuring for the past 53 years. It's a contest between all the members of European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The winning song is selected by televoting, each country can give points from 1 to 12 but don't have the right to vote for its own song. The Country that gathers the most points wins the Contest and the Winning country becomes the new Eurovision Host.

Many famous singers kicked their carrier from this contest to name a few: ABBA, Celine Dion (as Swiss participant), Jonny Logan, Helena Paparizou, Dima Bilan and many others. This contest is usually organized in the second or the third week of May each year. During the previous 3 months each country organizes internal selection for their entry for the contest.

Due to the increasing number of participating countries (43) as of this year there were 2 semifinals in which the participants perform their songs and the best 10 songs from each semifinal proceed to the final with the Big 4 (UK,France, Germany and Spain - who go directly to the Final becoz they fund the contest) and the winning song from the previous contest.

It is a trend that the winning song or at least the participating songs become a Hit sometimes within europe other times to the whole world like the case of Greece's winning song "My number one" by Helena Paparizou that was extremely popular here in Amman (though i doubt that people new that it was an ESC winning song :) )

Its interesting to point out that Jordan Radio Television JRTV used to broadcast it live until 1999. Due to political reasons.. in 1998 Israel won the contest and the Israeli Television brought the contest to Jerusaelm and since then JRTV stopped the broadcast.

Another political trivial thing was the application of Lebanon to the contest 2 years ago, but because according to the contract the Lebanese channel had to broadcast all the songs including the Israeli song they withdrew. But it is expected to see Lebanon in 2009 since the applicant Television has changed.

Its also worth mentioning the technically Palestine has the right to participate since its an official member in the EBU, so who knows maybe we will see the contest in Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.

Last year's winner was Serbia (which many thought that it was Europe's way to tell Serbia that we appericiate you although we will take Kosovo from you) and they Hosted this years contest in their capital Belgrade. It was a magnificent show and for one week Belgrade was the center of Europe hosting thousands of young europeans from all over Europe.. from UK to Armenia..

Here is a small interval act during which the Televoting was occuring in this years Eurovision SOng contest . The music played is composed by a famous Serbian musician Goran Bregovic who is popular with his folk serbian music.




You can find more about the contest following this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision#Participation