Spanish
Editorial.- The Eurovision Song Contest is a cultural phenomenon that has marked generations since its creation in 1956. Over the years, it has evolved in format, rules, and style, adapting to the social, technological, and musical changes of the continent.
From its beginnings with only seven participating countries to becoming one of the most-watched television events in the world, Eurovision has been the scene of memorable moments, unique curiosities, and surprising records.
Next, we review its origins, the main changes in its structure, interesting facts and highlights, as well as Spain's role in this competition.
Read more: History of Eurovision: The music festival that was born from the ashes of war
Los orígenes del Festival de Eurovisión
The first edition of the Festival, in which seven countries participated (West Germany, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Italy, Netherlands, and Belgium), was held on May 24, 1956, in the Swiss city of Lugano. The winner was the host nation with the song «Refrain», performed by Lys Assia. By tradition, the country of the winning song is in charge of producing the Eurovision Festival the following year.
This is the world's oldest television program still being broadcast. In addition, it is the song festival with the largest audience worldwide, with estimates ranging from 200 to 600 million viewers.
Participation in the festival is open to any active member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), so it is not limited to countries geographically located in Europe. This is why, despite the prefix "Euro" in "Eurovision", there is no direct relationship with the European Union. The number of participants in the Festival has been increasing after the entry into the EBU of the countries of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, which led to modifying the regulations of the same in 1994.
This restructuring, according to which the last seven classified from the previous edition were eliminated, allowed seven eastern nations to compete for the first time that year. Over the years, the festival has evolved from a television experiment to a large-scale international institution. The term "Eurovision" enjoys worldwide recognition today.
Changes in the Contest Format and Rules
Faced with the large number of countries interested in participating in the Festival, in 2001 the EBU agreed that those who were not among the fifteen most voted after the winner would be eliminated from the following edition. Nations with a greater contribution to the contest were exempt from this rule. Among them, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain (the so-called Big Five). These five countries are guaranteed their participation in all editions even if they are in the last positions.
In the 1998 edition, to encourage public participation, the EBU replaced the traditional national juries with popular voting in each State via telephone call, excluding the representative song of each country. In 2003, voting via SMS messages was also allowed.
Eurovision changed the voting system in 2016. First, all the juries voted country by country (with Australia winning) and, subsequently, the public vote was added (Russia the favorite). But despite these two winners, Ukraine was the winning country by winning in the sum of jury and public.
Since 1999, the Festival has given participating countries the freedom to choose the languages of their songs, as opposed to what was established until then, which was mandatory: to sing in the national languages.
In the year 2000, even Russia chose to sing in English, as did other countries such as Azerbaijan, Austria, Denmark or Norway, which have also competed with songs entirely in that language. However, in 2007 a song performed in Serbian (Molitva by Marija Šerifović) won, and in 2004 the winning song included parts in English and Ukrainian (Wild Dances by Ruslana Lyzhichko).
Curiosities, figures and records of Eurovision
English is the language that has won the most times in Eurovision, with a total of 29 songs composed entirely in English. The group ABBA was the first winner who renounced their mother tongue (Swedish) in favor of English with the song Waterloo.
Regarding victories, in the overall count of winners, Ireland, with seven victories, is the country that has won the contest the most times, followed by France, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and Sweden with five victories each. They are followed by Netherlands and Israel with four, and Norway with other victories.
In 2008, faced with the massive participation of countries, two preliminary semi-finals were used for the first time. In total, there were 43 participating countries, of which only 25 advanced to the final.
Two years later, in the 2010 edition, during the performance of the Spanish representative, Daniel Diges, a streaker jumped onto the stage, breaking the security barrier. The incident caused Spain to repeat its performance again at the end of the festival.
