Eurovision Song Contest 2026

The answer is 2004.

That's when everything changed. Up until then, the EBU was far more hands-off when the contest preparation and they pretty left the host broadcaster to it. Yes, they drew up the rules, visited the host city a few times in the months leading up to the contest and provided a voting scrutineer (those of us over 40 will remember Mr Naef), but really, they didn't go much further. Take for example, 1995, when the Irish entry was accused of plagiarism, the EBU stood back and allowed RTÉ to make the call if the song should be allowed compete. Despite the song very clearly being a copy of a 70s folk song called Moonlight, RTÉ cleared it. If something similar happened today, it would be the EBU that would make the decision.

The early 2000s changed things. There were two contests in a row, 2002 and 2003, staged in former Soviet states, Estonia and Latvia. Both countries had small broadcasters, not much money and little experience staging major international events. To help them, other broadcasters stepped in, mainly SVT from Sweden. Estonia in 2002 did mostly fine, though it had a lot of money troubles. However, Latvia's preparations in 2003 were a disaster. When the EBU visited Riga in mid-March 2003, very little had been done. Everything was sorted in the end, of course, but the EBU I believe got quite a shock at how badly LTV was organising things. At the time, it was widely expected that smaller, less well-off Eastern European countries hosting would become a regular event, and they would all face similar challenges to Estonia and Latvia.

So, from 2004, the EBU played a bigger role to ensure no repeat of 2003's chaotic planning. There was a new role created within the EBU, ESC Executive Supervisor, which not only replaced the scrutineer, but, according to the rules of the 2004 contest, had “direct responsibility for overseeing and guiding all aspects of the financial, organizational, and creative planning and execution of the Eurovision Song Contest.” There was also a bigger role for the Reference Group.

The EBU also took greater oversight of the televoting system. Before 2004, participating broadcasters worked with their country's telecommunications firms to collect telephone and SMS votes. From the 2004 contest, the counting of televotes was centralised after the EBU appointed a pan-European voting partner.

Perhaps most notably, in 2004, the description of the contest changed in the rules from the promotion of "high-quality original songs in the field of popular music, by encouraging competition among artists, songwriters and composers through the international comparison of their songs" to “a state-of-the-art, world-class television production of a competition between musical acts representing countries of the Members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).” The EBU was making it clear that the contest was now a television extravaganza first and a song contest second.

The same year also saw the ban on live music put in place.

Finally, of course, 2004 was the year the generic "heart" logo was introduced. The EBU was keen to establish the contest's "brand" and wanted something akin to the Olympic rings. Since then, we've only seen the EBU further replace individuality with consistency, like in 2008, when it introduced the glass microphone trophy, replacing the bespoke trophy designs of previous years.

Sorry for that long post, but the point I'm trying to make is that everything that's perhaps wrong with the modern-day contest, from a production or staging perspective at least, can be traced back to 2004.

Thanks! Looking forward to Denmark in particular. Would really like Switzerland to qualify but borderline I would say.

Social media going crazy about how amazing Dara’s staging of ‘Bangaranga’ looks.

Cat rave gifs at the ready!

Why the hell is Evelyn O'Rourke in Vienna? RTÉ rightly decided to boycott the contest so why send someone to report on it. She spent 5 minutes telling us nothing we already didn't know, trying to justify spending public money.

I don't recall ever mentioning in the last six months in this thread I didn't intend watching this year's Contest, not even once and have never used the word 'boycott'. Have you mixed me up with a different poster?

Ok, my toes have uncurled now.

We can begin. 🙂

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Nice rack, that’s one qualifier surely

I liked Bulgaria. The choreography was well done

Jiva getting harassed onstage by AJ of the Backstreet Boys.

Romania WOW! So glad they're back in the competition.

Always liked ‘Mother Nature’, but I get the feeling she could be going home.

I loved Romania sports far I'm probably 2 songs behind everyone else