. . "The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). There are also organised official groups in each country (OGAE) where they hold Second Chance contests, and various others as well. Countries must be in the European Broadcasting Area and have active membership with the EBU to compete"@en . . "The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual music competition between European nations with broadcasters that are members of the EBU. It has been held every year since 1956. Since then, the contest has spread to some countries in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa. The contest is one of the most popular and oldest television programmes in the world, with over 250 million people around the world watching the contest on local television, listening on local radio or watching the contest live over the internet. The contest has been broadcast in Australia, USA, Vietnam, Japan, Kazakhstan, China and more."@en . "Each member country submits a 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 since its inauguration in 1956 and is one of the longest-running television programs 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 such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailan"@en . "2008-05-24"^^ . . . . "The Eurovision Song Contest was an annual competition held among the nations of Europe. Jack Harkness remembered when ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. (AUDIO: The Dead Line) In an alternate timeline in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had been made immortal, the composer had made several Eurovision entries, none of which were looked on favourably. (AUDIO: My Own Private Wolfgang)"@en . "For anyone who is in interested in seeing just how weird and eccentric the European continent can be, this is the show to look at first. The European Broadcasting Union operates a network known as Eurovision, which is primarily used to distribute coverage of special events (such as sporting events, the Pope's Easter Mass, etc.) throughout its member broadcasters. It produces very few programmes in its own right, but this is far and away the best known. So much so, in fact, that most Britons at least would be quite surprised to learn that \"Eurovision\" could refer to anything but the Song Contest."@en . "Eurovision Song Contest"@de . . . "UUUUUU"@es . . "In the forthcoming sections, we will introduce you to some of this year's competitors from all over Europe, and Israel. We will also explore our beautiful (and safe!) ex-soviet host nation. So without further ado, let's get on with the show!! __TOC__"@en . "In the forthcoming sections, we will introduce you to some of this year's competitors from all over Europe, and Israel. We will also explore our beautiful (and safe!) ex-soviet host nation. So without further ado, let's get on with the show!! __TOC__"@en . . "The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual music competition between European nations with broadcasters that are members of the EBU. It has been held every year since 1956. Since then, the contest has spread to some countries in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa. The contest is one of the most popular and oldest television programmes in the world, with over 250 million people around the world watching the contest on local television, listening on local radio or watching the contest live over the internet. The contest has been broadcast in Australia, USA, Vietnam, Japan, Kazakhstan, China and more."@en . . . . "Each member country submits a 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 since its inauguration in 1956 and is one of the longest-running television programs 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 such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam, although these countries do not compete. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, via the Eurovision website. Winning the Eurovision Song Contest provides an opportunity for the winning artists to capitalise on the surrounding publicity and further their career. Artists whose international careers were directly launched into the spotlight following their participation at Eurovision include: Italian Domenico Modugno, who came third with the song \"Nel blu dipinto di blu\" (\"In the sky, painted blue\", popularly known as \"Volare\") in 1958; ABBA, who won the contest for Sweden in 1974 with \"Waterloo\"; C\u00E9line Dion, who won for Switzerland in 1988 with the French-language song \"Ne partez pas sans moi\" (\"Don't leave without me\"); the Spaniard Julio Iglesias, who has sold over 300 million records worldwide; and Bucks Fizz, who won in 1981 for the United Kingdom with \"Making Your Mind Up\"."@en . . "The Eurovision Song Contest was an annual competition held among the nations of Europe. Jack Harkness remembered when ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. (AUDIO: The Dead Line) In an alternate timeline in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had been made immortal, the composer had made several Eurovision entries, none of which were looked on favourably. (AUDIO: My Own Private Wolfgang)"@en . "Eurovision Song Contest"@en . . . "3054464"^^ . "Sigla"@es . "ArchivoDeImagen"@es . . . . . "Nombre de la Federaci\u00F3n"@es . . "XXXXX"@es . "right|250pxHallo Europa! Herzlich willkommen zu diesem exklusiven Ausblick auf den diesj\u00E4hrigen Eurovision Song Contest, von Nostalgikern und Froschfreunden auch Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson genannt, hier auf den wundervollen, heute festlich geschm\u00FCckten Seiten der Uncyclopedia! In den folgenden Abschnitten werden wir Ihnen einige der Wettbewerbsteilnehmer dieses Jahres aus ganz Europa und Israel vorstellen. Au\u00DFerdem werden wir gemeinsam unser wundersch\u00F6nes (und sicheres!) Gastgeberland Serbien kennenlernen. Genug der Vorrede. M\u00F6ge die von Milliarden Fernsehzuschauern erwartete Show der Superlative nun beginnen! __TOC__ right|thumb|300px|Die B\u00FChnengestaltung ist in diesem Jahr von der Idee einer \"kulturellen Integration eines erweiterten Europas\" inspiriert. Und irgendwas mit Fischen."@de . . . . . "Eurovision Song Contest"@es . "fecha"@es . . . . . . . . . . . "For anyone who is in interested in seeing just how weird and eccentric the European continent can be, this is the show to look at first. The European Broadcasting Union operates a network known as Eurovision, which is primarily used to distribute coverage of special events (such as sporting events, the Pope's Easter Mass, etc.) throughout its member broadcasters. It produces very few programmes in its own right, but this is far and away the best known. So much so, in fact, that most Britons at least would be quite surprised to learn that \"Eurovision\" could refer to anything but the Song Contest. The contest has run since 1956 and was quite well-respected in its early years, with established artists such as Cliff Richard and Serge Gainsbourg taking part and others such as Dana and Sandie Shaw launching successful careers off the back of the show. The original idea was to foster post-WWII European unity and showcase the varied musical talent that Europe had to offer. What's interesting to note that this contest is open not just to \"European\" countries, but to all countries with members in the EBU, which, also includes Israel, Turkey and some North-African and Middle-Eastern countries. With the contest taking a credibility dive in the 1970s, the last band to successfully launch an international career from the show were ABBA, who won in 1974 with \"Waterloo\", though several acts have remained popular in their own countries after entering the show. These days, Eurovision is split into two main camps. The first is the Eastern and Central European countries, who generally take it fairly seriously, seeing it as an important marker of new-found independence. The winner hosts the next show, which can do wonders for the tourist industry in obscure cities (though the contest itself can be ruinously expensive to host). Entries from Eastern and Central Europe are generally rock-ballads with some sort of ethnic tinge to them. The second major group is the Western countries that made up the \"traditional\" entrants to Eurovision before Communism fell in the early 1990s. They tend to view the contest as all rather silly, camp fun, and enter either novelty acts, drag queens or camp pop (or sometimes both together) -- then grouse about political voting when they don't win. The format of the show has changed over the years, but remains broadly the same: First a series of songs is performed, then voting takes place to determine a winner. The votes from each country are \"telephoned\" (now shown by live feed) in to the studio one at a time, providing dramatic tension. The traditional way to start this is to say \"Hello, [host city], this is [capital of particular country] calling\". Songs must be original, no more than 3 minutes long and contain some lyrics (no Instrumentals). Between 1974 and 1998, songs had to be sung in one of the official languages of the country entering. However, this rule was removed after a long string of wins by Ireland, who were felt to have an unfair advantage by being one of only three countries able to sing in English (which was rapidly becoming the lingua franca of Europe). Before 1997, all voting was done by panels of expert judges. However, following accusations of \"political\" and \"bloc\" voting, public phone votes were introduced. Some have argued that this has only made it worse (particularly as emigrants can vote for their home country -- La Pologne, douze points!); the UK's nul points in 2003 was alleged to be because of their recent invasion of Iraq (although the real reason was probably Jemini's horrifying off key singing), and by 2007, the bloc-voting had become so prevalent among ex-Soviet and ex-Yugoslav countries that Malta fixed their votes in protest. The situation in 2007, followed by a similar (but less prevalent) repeat in 2008, prompted the EBU to change the voting rules to a hybrid system reflecting jury votes and public votes, which contributed to levelling the contest for Western countries from 2009 onwards. The 2008 contest was won by Russia, in a contest that was accused to contain a large amount of political voting (most of the other former Soviet states giving Russia 12 points), the British entry coming last (jointly with Germany and Poland, not coincidentally two other countries that rarely benefit from political voting) and several entries in the weird category. The Irish entry -- and I am seriously not making this up -- was a puppet Turkey Vulture that is actually an extremely famous (children's) television character in Ireland, who had released six albums and recorded with Bono and Bob Geldof. He won the national \"Eurosong 2008\" contest by public voting, much to the dismay of people who wanted to bring a serious contestant to Belgrade. He failed to get through the semi-finals, being booed before even starting their performance. There are many who believe that he wasn't even the most embarrassing entry they ever sent. The Latvian entry had pirates, Azerbaijan had thong-clad succubi, and France had noted electronica artist Sebastien Tellier perform alongside female backing singers that performed with fake beards. See below for Bosnia-Herzegovina and Spain's entries. The 2009 contest was won by Norway by a country mile, beating Lordi's previous record of 292 points by nearly a hundred (although still not the record in percentage terms - 387 out of a possible 492 isn't as good as 164 out of a possible 204, as achieved in 1976) A fresh change from the usual status quo of Western countries being near the bottom end of the table, changes in the voting system allowed songs to be judged more on their merit rather than the country of origin, and boy, did they. The UK got their best score in twelve years, 173 points, finishing fifth (the fact that the song was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who also played the piano, arguably helped). Compare that to their previous appearances, having not finished in the top half since 2003. The finalists were mostly singers, with Norway winning by virtue of a violin. The 2010 contest was won by Germany (their first win since 1982) and was the first \"Big Four\" winner since the United Kingdom thirteen years previously. Their song, \"Satellite\" by Lena, was already a hit single across the continent in the weeks leading to the contest, and its popularity sustained it through to the Final night. The UK came bottom and the Spanish got to do their song again after someone invaded the stage. The 2011 contest was won by Azerbaijan after a rather narrow vote where they were firmly placed second or third for the first half and where the top four were switching around up until the last vote -- at one point, even the UK was on top for all of sixty seconds. The finale had gotten an unusually strong selection this year with up to five or six favourites - but Azerbaijan was barely a blip on the radar. The performances in the finale included a unicycle, sand art, exploding glass and a pair of hyperactive Irish twins whose hair became a running joke when the votes were to be cast. Sweden, by and large the fan favorite, took the title for the fifth time in 2012 with 372 points and a 113 point lead over Russia, not quite beating Norway's 2009 record. Loreen's performance was notable for eschewing the usual elaborate stage show and bright lighting and going for darker lighting, an understated outfit, and more restrained choreography that invoked martial arts. Many other countries also went for more understated shows; Ukraine and France stood out as having the most elaborate stage shows in the final. 2012 was also notable for the top 3 countries (Sweden, Russia, and Serbia) earning their positions largely without the aid of bloc voting; Sweden and Russia both got points from 40 of 42 countries, and Serbia got points from 30 of 42. Albania achieved their best-ever result, 5th place with 146 points as well as 2nd in the 1st semifinal; Norway saved the United Kingdom from last place, making for Norway's 11th last place result in the entire history of the contest. See also the Wikipedia article. In 2007, the Eurovision Dance Contest started, essentially featuring a lot of people from the Strictly Come Dancing franchise. Few of the freestyle dances had the supposed national connection and about a dozen involved the removal of clothing. The first winner was Finland, with Poland winning the 2008 contest."@en . . . "The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). There are also organised official groups in each country (OGAE) where they hold Second Chance contests, and various others as well. Countries must be in the European Broadcasting Area and have active membership with the EBU to compete Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television (via a televised national final voted on by the public, juries or a combination of both, or an entry selected internally by the country's broadcaster) 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 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. The contest has also been broadcast outside Europe to such places as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela despite the fact that that they do not compete. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet, with more than 74,000 people in almost 140 countries having watched the 2006 edition online."@en . "right|250pxHallo Europa! Herzlich willkommen zu diesem exklusiven Ausblick auf den diesj\u00E4hrigen Eurovision Song Contest, von Nostalgikern und Froschfreunden auch Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson genannt, hier auf den wundervollen, heute festlich geschm\u00FCckten Seiten der Uncyclopedia! In den folgenden Abschnitten werden wir Ihnen einige der Wettbewerbsteilnehmer dieses Jahres aus ganz Europa und Israel vorstellen. Au\u00DFerdem werden wir gemeinsam unser wundersch\u00F6nes (und sicheres!) Gastgeberland Serbien kennenlernen."@de . . .