by Maja Gojkovic
The Eurovision Song Contest 2008 is the 53rd Eurovision Song Contest, and this years competition will be hosted by Serbia. The semi-finals will be held on 20 and 22 May respectively and the final on 24 May 2008 in the capital, Belgrade.
The contest wll be held in Belgrade Arena. The arena is among the largest indoor arenas in Europe, with a total capacity of more than 20,000 seats.
Serbia will be hosting the Contest for 2008 after Marija Šerifović won the Contest in 2007 in Helsinki, Finland.
The contest will be hosted by Jovana Janković, a daily morning show host and Željko Joksimović one of the most successful musicians in the Balkan region. In 2004, he represented Serbia & Montenegro at the Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul, Turkey, with Lane Moje, and finished second.
For this years’ competition Serbia will be represented by Jelena Tomašević feat. Bora Dugic with a song entitled Oro. Let’s hope it is as good as last year’s winning song by Marija Serifovic- Moltiva.
Belgrade is known as Beograd by the locals, is the largest and capital city of Serbia. The city has almost 1,6 million citizens. Belgrade is located confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. It is the cultural and political heart of the country; it hosts several music- and cultural festivals across the city throughout the year.
The city is slowly becoming the new trendy place to be, it is still undiscovered by many people. The City offers various styles of beautiful architecture that dominate the city. Trendy hot-spots such as Knez Mihajlova is one of the most popular pedestrian only streets in Belgrade and offers a wide variety of quaint cafés and restaurants and is definitely a popular place to be seen.
With the help of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest, Belgrade have finally be given the chance to show off the amazing sights and exactly what the city has to offer.
The Eurovison 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 one of the most-watched non-sporting events in the world with audience figures reaching to anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally in recent years.
Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to such places as Australia, Canada, Mexico, Egypt, United States, Hong Kong, India, despite the fact the countires do not participate. Since 2000, the Contest has also been broadcast over the Internet with more than 74,000 people in almost 140 countries having watched the contest in 2006 online.
The artists who achieved most success after thier Eurovision win that led them to a career and launched them into the spotlight were ABBA, ABBA won the Contest for Sweden in 1974 with their song “Waterloo” after this they went on to be one of the most successful bands of their time.
Other winners who have also achieved international fame due to a successful win at Eurovison include Céline Dion, who won the Contest for Switzerland in 1988 with the song “Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi”.
With regard to winners the country that had achieved most success has been Ireland. Ireland holds the record for the most number of wins, having won the Contest seven times which includes wins three times in a row in the mid 1990s.
In joint second place with five wins each are France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom holds the best record at the Contest in terms of average scoreboard position; having finished in the top two in 20 out of 52 Contests from1956–2007.
The first few years of the 21st century produced a variety of first-time winners, from both “new” Eurovision countries, and old-timers who had entered for many years without a win. Every year from 2001 to 2007 resulted in a country winning for the first time. The 2006 winner was Finland, who had finally won after having entered the Contest for 45 years. Ukraine on the other hand did not have to wait so long, winning with their second entry in 2004. Serbia won the very first year it entered as an independent state in 2007. As of 2008, the country which has entered the longest with no wins to their name is Portugal. They started entering in 1964, and are still awaiting their first win.
For the first time in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, two Semi-Finals will be held to decide which 25 countries will be represented in the Final. The first Semi-Final will take place on Tuesday, 20th of May.
Citizens of each participating country vote by telephone and SMS. Two of the so-called ‘Big Four’ (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) will also vote in this Semi-Final (to be decided by draw), and possibly the Host Country (also to be decided by draw). Each country’s 10 favourites are awarded 1 to 8, 10 and 12 points based on the number of votes. The top-9 of the tele-voting qualifies for the Final. The highest ranked entry of the back-up jury that has not qualified for the Final in the tele-voting also qualifies for the Final. The 10 qualified countries will be presented in randomly drawn order at the end of the show. The complete results of the tele-voting will not be announced until after the Final, to keep the tension high.
The favourites to win this years’ 2008 Eurovision Song Contest are Russia who will be represented by Dima Bilan with the song Believe. According to bookies PaddyPower the odds on favourites Russia are 10/3. Spain and Ireland stand at 25/1 with the UK in shocking position with odds of 300/1. Spain will be represented by Rodolfo Chikilicuatre with the song Baila El Chiki Chiki. Ireland will be represented by Dustin the Turkey with song Irelande Douze Pointe and the UK by Andy Abraham (Runner up of X-Factor) with song Even If.
