The Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 was the inaugural edition of the Eurovision Dance Contest, held on 1 September 2007 at the BBC Television Centre in London, United Kingdom, and presented by Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It featured the participation of dance couples from sixteen countries.

Viewers cast their votes by telephone and SMS text message voting on each couple's two dances – the first being ballroom or Latin with the second being freestyle, with a "national" flavour. Professional dance couples were allowed to enter the competition. Enrique Iglesias performed a medley of "Tired of Being Sorry" and "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)" during the interval.

The first ever winners of the contest were Katja Koukkula and Jussi Väänänen representing Finland who received a total of 132 points. 2nd place went to Ukraine, 3rd to Ireland, 4th to Poland and 5th place to Austria following a tie with Portugal, who also received 74 points.

Location

Alongside the announcement as host broadcaster, the host city, venue and presenters for the contest were announced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on 13 April 2007.

The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it closed in March 2013. In September 2017, BBC Studioworks re-opened the three studios at Television Centre, alongside a range of post-production facilities and ancillary areas.

Television Centre previously hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1963 after , which won the year before, declined to host it due to financial shortcomings, also having hosted the competition in  and . The last time the United Kingdom hosted one of the Eurovision's network Family of Events was the Eurovision Young Dancers 2001, which was also held in London.

Format Host broadcaster The contest was hosted by the BBC, and was a co-production by Splash Media – run by the developers of its successful Strictly Come Dancing format – and sports production house Sunset + Vine – with help from the International DanceSport Federation and in association with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The contest was presented in English and French languages, although France did not take part. Each broadcaster also had the option of providing its own commentators at the event.

Visual design The logo of 2007 contest features the word Eurovision written in the same way as it is on the Eurovision Song Contest logos without the heart but included the silhouette of a dancing couple in front of a star that contains the flag of the host country, the United Kingdom.

Running order The running order for the sixteen participants was announced on 6 August 2007 and had been determined in two steps. In the first round, the participating countries were drawn into groups, under supervision of an auditor. In the second round, the producers of the contest determined the final running order within the drawn groups to assure variety in the live show.

Interval act

Singer Enrique Iglesias performed a medley of "Tired of Being Sorry" and "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)" as the interval act. The performance was pre-recorded before the live show.

Participants On 18 January 2007, the EBU officially announced the creation of this new dance contest. At the time, fourteen broadcasters had already expressed their interest in taking part, with a production meeting taking place the day before in London. On 13 April, BBC News Online incorrectly reported that the broadcasters from thirteen countries would compete in the upcoming inaugural contest that autumn; these being Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom. Greece, Lithuania, and Poland were not included in the list despite being confirmed as participants. The Croatian broadcaster HRT was one of the fourteen broadcasters that had initially expressed an interest in taking part (alongside Ukraine), but pulled out due to costs and scheduling problems.

On 28 August 2007, a press conference was held with the participation of the competition producers, the show presenters, and all the competing couples. Later the same day, the participants attended the opening reception, which was organised at City Hall, London. Camera dress rehearsals followed over the next few days.

Due to the forest fires in Greece, the Greek broadcaster ERT did not air the show live and therefore used a back-up jury instead of televoting.

Austria and Portugal both finished with the same number of points, however, Austria received points from every other participating nation thus receiving points from more countries than Portugal, hence Austria took 5th place.

+ Participants and results Country Broadcaster Dancers Dance Styles Points Place Dance 1 Dance 2 1 SRG SSR Denise Biellmann and Paso Doble Swing 0 16 2 RTR Mariya Sittel and Vladislav Borodinov Rumba Paso Doble 72 7 3 NPO Alexandra Matteman and Redmond Valk Cha-Cha-Cha Rumba 34 12 4 BBC Camilla Dallerup and Brendan Cole Rumba Freestyle 18 15 5 ORF and Jive Paso Doble 74 5 6 ARD Wolke Hegenbarth and Samba dance Freestyle 59 8 7 ERT Ourania Kolliou and Spiros Pavlidis Jive Sirtaki 31 13 8 LRT Gabrielė Valiukaitė and Gintaras Svistunavičius Paso Doble Traditional Lithuanian Folk Dance 35 11 9 RTVE Amagoya Benlloch and Abraham Martinez Cha-Cha-Cha Paso Doble 38 10 10 RTÉ Nicola Byrne and Mick Donegan Jive Fandango 95 3 11 TVP Katarzyna Cichopek and Cha-Cha-Cha Showdance 84 4 12 DR Mette Skou Elkjær and David Jørgensen Rumba Showdance 38 9 13 RTP Sónia Araújo and Ricardo Silva Jive Tango 74 6 14 NTU Yulia Okropiridze and Illya Sydorenko Quickstep Showdance 121 2 15 TV4 Cecilia Ehrling and Martin Lidberg Paso Doble Disco Fusion 23 14 16 Yle Katja Koukkula and Jussi Väänänen Rumba Paso Doble 132 1

Scoreboard

The following 16 countries took part, and received the scores shown below.

+ Voting results Voting procedure used: scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="row" rowspan="16" Switzerland 0 Russia 72 31037 6454 812 10 Netherlands 34 5 7212 2 3 3 United Kingdom 18 35 7 3 Austria 74 7352 102334685547 Germany 59 10 56 10 7 57612 Greece 31 241545 4 212 1 Lithuania 35 1 6 4 121 1631 Spain 38 622 7 124 5 Ireland 95 1107863185 10123876 Poland 84 4847812 1610 4 1010 Denmark 38 116723 4284 Portugal 74 12683288212 2 362 Ukraine 121 312101256512861267 512 Sweden 23 1 1175 8 Finland 132 87124124101010881010712

12 points Below is a summary of all 12 points in the contest:

N. Contestant Nation(s) giving 12 points 5 , , , , 3 , , 2 , 1

Spokespersons The order in which each country announced their votes was done in alphabetical order of each countries. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.

Alice and Ellen Kessler George Amyras Pamela Flood

Marcus van Teijlingen

Svetoslav Vlokh Kirsty Gallacher

Broadcasts Most broadcaters sent commentators to London or commentated from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, provide voting information. In addition to the participating countries, the event was also broadcast in Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Iceland, Israel, and Macedonia.

+ Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries Country Channel(s) Commentator(s) ORF 1 Andi Knoll and Nicole Burns-Hansen DR1 Sisse Fisker and Claus Larsen Yle TV2 Sirpa Suutari-Jääskö and Jaana Pelkonen Das Erste Peter Urban and Markus Sonyi NET, ERT World (delayed) Maria Kozakou and Iordanis Pavlidis RTÉ One Marty Whelan and Michelle Alonzi LRT1 and Virginijus Visockas Nederland 1 Lucille Werner and TVP2 Artur Orzech and Zbigniew St. Zasada RTP1, RTP Internacional, RTP África , Alberto Rodrigues and Marco de Camillis Russia-1, RTR-Planeta Anastasia Zavorotnyuk and Stanislav Popov TVE1, TVE Internacional and Joana Subirana TV4 David Hellenius and Tony Irving SF 1 German: and TSI 1 Italian: and Ruggero Sindico Pershyi Natsionalnyi Timur Miroshnychenko and Oleksandra Myshko BBC One Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli

+ Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries Country Channel(s) Commentator(s) RTSH Leon Menkshi ARMTV Felix Khacatryan and Hrachuhi Utmazyan BTRC Dmitry Karas and Vladimir Parakhnevich BHT 1 Dejan Kukrić CyBC 1 Melina Karageorgiou RÚV (40 minutes delay) Eva Maria Jonsdottir Channel 1 MKRTV Milanka Rašić

Viewing figures +Estimated viewership by country (in millions) Country Viewership 0.68 0.51 0.38 3.1 0.36 0.08 ~0.65 0.76 4 1.4 ~2.4 2.2 1.4 0.35 (SRF 1) ~0.02 (TSI 1) ~0.3 3.8 Total ~23

See also Eurovision Song Contest 2007 Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007

References

External links Official Eurovision Dance Contest website EBU Press Release