Eurovision 2004: Istanbul

For eleven years the contest had dealt with having too many countries by sending some of them home for a year. In 2004 it stopped doing that. Everybody could enter, and a semi-final would decide who reached Saturday night.

Two nights

Thirty-six countries took part in Istanbul, ten more than the previous record.

Fourteen went straight to the final: the four big contributors — France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom — and the ten best of 2003. The other 22 sang in a semi-final on the Wednesday, and the top ten joined them.

Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro were there for the first time. Monaco came back after 25 years. Luxembourg was meant to return as well and pulled out in a dispute over money; it would be another twenty years before it did.

All 36 countries voted in the final, every one of them by public phone vote. That had never happened before.

The venue

Turkish television first chose a giant pyramid-shaped tent near Istanbul’s airport, then moved to the Abdi İpekçi Arena because it held more people. The slogan was “Under the Same Sky”, and the contest’s heart-shaped logo, used ever since, appeared for the first time.

With 36 sets of votes to get through, the hosts stopped repeating every score in both English and French. From now on each was read back in one language only.

The semi-final’s problems

An hour after the semi-final ended, the EBU found that the count was wrong.

The company processing the votes reported a fault in its software, and there was a problem with text-message voting in Croatia. When the Croatian figures were examined, Croatia turned out to have given four points to itself. The mobile operator had failed to strip out the illegal votes.

Monaco’s televote was unusable too, and its stand-by jury was used.

The results were recalculated. The same ten countries qualified.

Turkish viewers had their own grievance. Just before Slovenia’s song, the host broadcaster cut to a commercial break by mistake, and Turkey never heard it.

Small disasters

During one of the pauses for advertising, the presenters tried to talk live to Germany, Spain and Turkey. Only Germany answered.

And on her way to hand over the trophy, the reigning winner, Sertab Erener, got her shoe jammed in a speaker grille at the side of the stage. Stagehands had to free her.

Cyprus and Turkey

Turkey gave points to Cyprus for the first time. Cyprus voted for Turkey for the second year running.

But when the Cypriot spokesperson appeared, there was no map. Every other country had been introduced with its outline highlighted. The omission was widely put down to Turkey’s recognition of the north of the island as a separate state.

The result

Ukraine had made its debut only the year before. Ruslana’s “Wild Dances” won with 280 points.

Serbia and Montenegro, which had won the semi-final, was second on 263 at its first attempt, and Greece third on 252. Until that night only two songs had ever scored more than 200, and both had been winners. Now three did it at once.

Turkey, at home, was fourth. Albania’s debut finished seventh.

Ireland, in twenty-second, had its worst result yet. Norway was last for the tenth time.