The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual song contest held since 1956 between the member states of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Recently, on May 11, 2024, the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 final took place, where our girls ALYONA ALYONA & JERRY HEIL, with the song “Teresa & Maria” took the honorable third place, with which we congratulate them and are proud of them.
It is also good news for us that on April 28, 2024, the BAFTA Television Craft Awards ceremony was held at the Royal Festival Hall in London. The Eurovision Song Contest 2023, which was hosted by the United Kingdom on behalf of Ukraine, won in the Best Live Show category. The Ukrainian Eurovision Song Contest competed with the coronation concert of Charles III and the Royal British Legion Remembrance Festival. The award went to one of the show’s hosts, Anna Waddingham. Ukrainian singer Yulia Sanina, who co-hosted the contest, also received the award on stage along with the BBC team.
The Ukrainian-British Eurovision Song Contest 2023 was awarded in the Best Live Show category by the BAFTA Television Awards, the main television award of the United Kingdom.
“It was a great honor to share this evening with the BBC team,” Yulia Sanina commented on Instagram.
Last year’s Eurovision Song Contest was held in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine and with the involvement of the Ukrainian team and artists. Together with the BBC, the broadcaster of last year’s show, the contest was organized by the team of UA:PBC, headed by Oksana Skybinska, Head of the Ukrainian delegation to Eurovision, Herman Nenov, Creative Director of Eurovision 2023 from Ukraine, with whom our legal team works, and Tatiana Semenova, Executive Producer of the Eurovision project team. In 2024, Herman Nenov took on the staging of the performance of Tali from Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, which took 13th place in the final. He was also the creative director of the national selection for Junior Eurovision in 2023, and he is one of the leading Ukrainian directors who has contributed to the significant development of Ukrainian show business and has staged productions for such Ukrainian stars: Ivan Navi, Olga Polyakova, Anna Trincher, Anastasia Kamenskykh and others.
On April 28, Eurovision 2023 won two BAFTA TV Craft Awards in the categories Director: Director: Multi-Camera and Entertainment Craft Team in the categories of Entertainment Production Team.
In March, the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 received awards from the Royal Television Society in the Live Event category.
In the following article, we will remind you about the contest itself, its participants, principles and interesting facts.
Basic principles of the contest
- Singers from the participating countries present songs performed live in a television program broadcast by the European Broadcasting Union (hereinafter referred to as the EBU) via the Eurovision Network simultaneously in all countries. A “country” as a participant is represented by a single television company from that country;
- The program takes place in one of the participating countries and is broadcast from a concert hall in the host city;
- During the program, after all the songs have been performed, the countries begin the process of voting for the songs of other countries: you cannot vote for your own country’s song if you are in your own country during the voting;
- At the end of the program, the song that receives the most votes (combined from the jury of the participating countries and the audience) is declared the winner. The country whose singer became the winner is invited to host the next year’s contest;
- The program is invariably opened by one or more hosts who invite the audience to watch the show. Most host countries try to capitalize on the fact that they are hosting a program with such a wide international audience, usually in the form of a kind of video postcard, as if to promote tourism;
- A non-competitive entertainment act, which may take any form, is performed between the song block and the announcement of the start of voting;
- Before and after the broadcast of the Competition (as well as other events broadcast by the EBU), the EBU’s music screen saver is played, which is the prelude to the piece “Te Deum” by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Who can participate?
Active members (as opposed to associate members) of the European Broadcasting Union are eligible to participate in the Competition. Active members are states located in the European Broadcasting Area or those that are members of the Council of Europe. The European Broadcasting Area is defined by the International Telecommunication Union. This zone includes the countries located between the border of ITU Region 1 in the west, the 40th meridian of east longitude in the east and the 30th parallel of north latitude in the south. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as the territories of Ukraine, Iraq, Jordan and Syria that lie outside these borders, are part of the European Broadcasting Area.
Broadcasters that are associate members may be eligible to participate in the competition, subject to the approval of the competition reference group.
If an organization that is an active member of the EBU wishes to participate in the competition, it must meet the conditions set out in the competition rules (a new copy of which is published every year). Starting from 2007, this includes the requirement to broadcast the previous year’s program in their country, as well as to pay the participation fee to the EBU by the deadline set by the current year’s competition rules.
The right to participate in the contest is not determined by geographical location on the European continent, despite the root “Euro” in the word “Eurovision,” nor does it have anything to do with the European Union. For example, in 1980, the North African country of Morocco took part in the contest, and since 2015, Australia has been participating.
Records and achievements
The record for the number of contests held at home is held by the United Kingdom – it has hosted Eurovision 9 times: 4 times as a result of its victories and 5 times after other winning countries refused to host the contest. Dublin holds the palm among Eurovision venues: the city itself has hosted the contest 6 times, and the local Point Theater – 3 times (more than any other concert venue).
The largest arena in terms of spectator capacity is the Danish Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, which hosted 38,000 people in 2001. The smallest Eurovision host city is Millstreet, Ireland, with a capacity of 1,500 people, but this did not prevent it from hosting a much larger number of people in 1993.
The record holders of Eurovision in terms of the number of victories among the countries are Ireland and Sweden – 7 times contestants from these countries have won first place at the contest (including the case when Ireland won three times in a row – the only such case at the moment, no country has yet been able to surpass or at least repeat this record, although even before Ireland set such an achievement, there were cases when the same country won twice in a row).
The youngest participant in the history of the contest is Frenchwoman Natalie Pak, who was almost 12 years old in 1989. The oldest participant of the Eurovision Song Contest is Emil Ramsauer, the double bassist of the Swiss band Takasa, who appeared on the stage of Eurovision 2013 at the age of 95. The oldest solo performer at the Eurovision Song Contest is Engelbert Humperdinck from the UK, who was 76 years old at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. The youngest winner in the history of Eurovision is Belgian Sandra Kim, who performed in 1986 at the age of 13.
The Eurovision record holders in terms of the number of times they have participated are Belgian Foud Leclerc (1956, 1958, 1960, 1962), Swiss band Peter, Sue and Marc (1971, 1976, 1979, 1981), San Marino’s Valentina Monetta (2012, 2013, 2014, 2017) and Swedish-Norwegian singer Elisabeth Andreassen (1982, 1985, 1994, 1996) – each of these four has performed at the song contest 4 times.
Ukraine is the only country at the Eurovision Song Contest that has performed in the final every time during all the years of its participation in the contest. Ukraine is also the country whose song scored a record number of points in the final voting from viewers – 439, which took place at Eurovision 2022, when Kalush Orchestra won with the song “Stefania”.
Thus, it is difficult to underestimate the importance of Eurovision as a cultural event that unites European countries and even beyond. It is a celebration of the diversity of musical and cultural experiences that gives artists from different countries the opportunity to showcase their talent and draw attention to their culture. In addition, Eurovision is not only a music contest, but also a platform for discussing important social issues. Our law firm is annually involved in the Eurovision Song Contest and has extensive experience and knowledge in resolving various legal and other issues that arise both during the National Selection and during the stay of our representatives at the contest itself in the respective host country.
award / BAFTA / copyright / Eurovision Song Contest / intellectual property
