The Eurovision Song Contest 2005 was the 50th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of a semi-final on 19 May and a final on 21 May 2005, held at the Palace of Sports in Kyiv, Ukraine, and presented by Maria Efrosinina and Pavlo Shylko. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU), who staged the event after winning the for with the song "Wild Dances" by Ruslana.

Broadcasters from thirty-nine countries participated in the contest, three more than the previous record of thirty-six, that took part the year before. and made their first participation this year, while returned to the contest after a six-year absence, having last taken part .

The winner was with the song "My Number One", performed by Helena Paparizou and written by Manos Psaltakis, Christos Dantis and Natalia Germanou. This was Greece's first victory in the contest after 31 years of participation. , , , and rounded out the top five. Malta equalled their best result from , while Romania achieved their best result in their Eurovision history. Unusually, all "Big Four" countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) ended up as the "Last Four", all placing in the bottom four positions in the final.

Location

Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper. The Palace of Sports, a multi-purpose indoor arena, was confirmed by officials as the host venue on 6 September 2004. However, in order to host the contest, the facilities had been brought up to the standard required by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

At the end of December 2004, work began on the renovation of the hall, for which approximately 4 million francs were allocated. Renovation works were to be finished by 20 April, however, they were completed at the beginning of May. The arena could accommodate over 5,000 seated spectators. Additionally 2,000 press delegates were catered for.

Hotel rooms were scarce as the contest organisers asked the Ukrainian government to put a block on bookings they did not control themselves through official delegation allocations or tour packages: this led to many people's hotel bookings being cancelled.

Organizers hoped that by hosting Eurovision, it would boost Ukraine's image abroad and increase tourism, while the country's new government hoped that it would also give a modest boost to the long-term goal of acquiring European Union membership.

Participants

Thirty-nine countries participated in the 2005 contest. returned to the contest after a six-year absence, last competing . and competed in the contest for the first time. and were originally announced as participants, but the former withdrew before the deadline, and the latter withdrew in March 2005, two months before the contest.

Several of the performing artists had previously represented the same country in past editions: Constantinos Christoforou had represented as a solo artist and as part of One; Helena Paparizou had represented as part of Antique; Selma had represented ; and Chiara had represented . In addition, Alexandros Panayi providing backing vocals for Greece, had represented as a solo artist and as part of Voice; Anabel Conde providing backing vocals for Andorra, had represented ; and Elina Konstantopoulou providing backing vocals for Cyprus, had represented .

+ Eurovision Song Contest 2005 participants Country Broadcaster Artist Song Language Songwriter(s) RTSH Ledina Çelo "Tomorrow I Go" English RTVA Marian van de Wal "" Catalan ORF Global.Kryner "" English, Spanish BTRC Angelica Agurbash "Love Me Tonight" English RTBF Nuno Resende "" French BHRT Feminnem "Call Me" English BNT Kaffe "Lorraine" English HRT Boris Novković Lado Members "" Croatian CyBC Constantinos Christoforou "" English Constantinos Christoforou DR Jakob Sveistrup "Talking to You" English ETV Suntribe "Let's Get Loud" English Sven Lõhmus YLE Geir Rönning "Why" English Ortal "" French NDR Gracia "Run & Hide" English ERT Helena Paparizou "My Number One" English MTV Nox "" Hungarian RÚV Selma "If I Had Your Love" English RTÉ Donna and Joe "Love?" English Karl Broderick IBA Shiri Maimon "" () Hebrew, English LTV Walters and Kazha "The War Is Not Over" English Mārtiņš Freimanis LRT Laura and the Lovers "Little by Little" English MRT Martin Vučić "Make My Day" English PBS Chiara "Angel" English Chiara Siracusa TRM Zdob și Zdub "" English, Romanian TMC Lise Darly "" French NOS Glennis Grace "My Impossible Dream" English NRK Wig Wam "In My Dreams" English TVP "" Polish, Russian RTP 2B "" Portuguese, English TVR Luminița Anghel and "Let Me Try" English Cristian Faur C1R Natalia Podolskaya "Nobody Hurt No One" English UJRT No Name "" () Serbian RTVSLO Omar Naber "Stop" Slovene TVE Son de Sol "" Spanish Alfredo Panebianco SVT Martin Stenmarck "Las Vegas" English SRG SSR Vanilla Ninja "Cool Vibes" English TRT Gülseren "Rimi Rimi Ley" Turkish NTU GreenJolly "" () Ukrainian, English GreenJolly BBC Javine "Touch My Fire" English

Other countries Active EBU members broadcaster Czech Television initially applied to participate in the 2005 contest; however, it reconsidered débuting in the contest and later withdrew its application. broadcaster Télé Liban initially confirmed its début in the contest and selected the song "" performed by Aline Lahoud as its entry; however, the broadcaster announced its withdrawal from the competition in March 2005 after finding out the obligation to broadcast all participating entries, including the Israeli one, as well as enabling its viewers to vote for them; this contravened a Lebanese law prohibiting any acknowledgement of Israel.

Format Visual design The official logo of the contest remained the same from the with the country's flag in the heart being changed. Following Istanbul's 'Under the Same Sky', the slogan for the 2005 show was 'Awakening', which symbolised the awakening of the country and city ready to present itself to Europe. The postcards (short clips shown between performances) for the 2005 show illustrated Ukraine's culture and heritage along with a more modern and industrial side to the country.

This was the first edition to be broadcast in widescreen 16:9 format.

Presenters The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv were television presenter Maria "Masha" Efrosinina and DJ Pavlo "Pasha" Shylko. Previous winner Ruslana returned to the stage in Kyiv to perform in the interval act and to interview the contestants backstage in the 'green room'. Ruslana was also intended to be a presenter for the show, but was pulled out before the contest for numerous reasons, including her poor English skills. The Ukrainian boxers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko opened the televoting, while a special trophy was presented to the winner by Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko.

Publicity An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was an official pin set, which contains heart-shaped pins with the flags of all thirty-nine participating countries. The EBU also commissioned a book "The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History" by British/American author John Kennedy O'Connor to celebrate the contest's fiftieth anniversary.O'Connor, John Kennedy. The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History. Carlton Books, UK The book was presented on screen during the break between songs 12 and 13 (Serbia and Montenegro, Denmark). The book was published in English, German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Finnish.

Contest overview Semi-final

The semi-final was held on 19 May 2005 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST). 25 countries performed but all 39 participants voted.

+Results of the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2005CountryArtistSongPointsPlace1Global.Kryner""30212Laura and the Lovers"Little by Little"172532B""51174Zdob și Zdub""20725Walters and Kazha"The War Is Not Over"85106""22247""15878"Love Me Tonight"67139"My Impossible Dream"531410Selma"If I Had Your Love"521611""292212Suntribe"Let's Get Loud"312013Wig Wam"In My Dreams"164614 and Sistem"Let Me Try"235115Nox""167516"Why"501817"Make My Day"97918""272319Vanilla Ninja"Cool Vibes"114820 feat. Lado members""169421Kaffe"Lorraine"491922Donna and Joe"Love?"531423"Stop"691224"Talking to You"185325Ivan and Delfin""8111

Final

The finalists were: the four automatic qualifiers , , , and the ; the top 10 countries from the 2004 final (other than the automatic qualifiers); the top 10 countries from the 2005 semi-final.

The final was held on 21 May 2005 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST) and was won by . 24 countries performed and all 39 participants voted.

+Results of the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2005CountryArtistSongPointsPlace1Nox""97122Javine"Touch My Fire"18223Chiara"Angel"19224 and Sistem"Let Me Try"15835Wig Wam"In My Dreams"12596Gülseren"Rimi Rimi Ley"92137Zdob și Zdub""14868"Tomorrow I Go"53169"Ela Ela"461810Son de Sol""282111""154412No Name""137713"Talking to You"125914"Las Vegas"301915"Make My Day"521716GreenJolly""301917Gracia"Run & Hide"42418 feat. Lado members""1151119"My Number One"230120"Nobody Hurt No One"571521Feminnem"Call Me"791422Vanilla Ninja"Cool Vibes"128823Walters and Kazha"The War Is Not Over"153524Ortal""1123

Spokespersons Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. The order in which each country announced their votes was compiled by placing the countries that failed to qualify from the semi-final first in the running order they performed during the semi-final, followed by the finalists which voted in the order they performed in during the final. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.

Anne Allegrini Elena Ponomareva Nancy Coolen Ragnhildur Steinunn Jónsdóttir

Maarja-Liis Ilus Jari Sillanpää Ruth Gumbau

Dana Katarina Čas Maciej Orłoś

Cheryl Baker Valerie Vella

Ingvild Helljesen Meltem Ersan Yazgan Elena Camerzan

Melani Steliou

Nina Radulović Gry Johansen Annika Jankell Karolina Gočeva Maria Orlova Thomas Hermanns Barbara Kolar

Yana Churikova Ana Mirjana Račanović

Marija Naumova Marie Myriam

Detailed voting results

The EBU introduced an undisclosed threshold number of televotes that would have to be registered in each voting country in order to make that country's votes valid. If that number was not reached, the country's backup jury would vote instead. This affected Albania, Andorra and Monaco in the semi-final, and Andorra, Moldova and Monaco in the final.

Semi-final