ESC 2004
For the first time ever the contest was held over 2 days. With 36 entries the contest was too large to hold on 1 day. So the organisers decided that the Big 4 countries (France, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom) plus the 10 highest scorers from Riga (not including any of the Big 4 countries) would qualify directly for the final in Istanbul. All other entries would have to qualify from a televised semi-final where the top 10 scoring countries would qualify for the final. Monaco returned to the contest 25 years after their last appearance. Albania, Andorra, Belarus and Serbia & Montenegro all made their debuts (although some argue that Serbia & Montenegro should be credited for Yugoslavia's last entry in 1992). Poland, France and Russia didn't televise the Semi-Final as they had already qualified for the final. From 2005 it has been mandatory for all countries to broadcast both the Semi-Final and Final irrespective of participation in either of them. After a short interval the 10 qualifiers were announced as Serbia & Montenegro, Malta, Netherlands, Albania, Ukraine, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Greece and Cyprus. Switzerland went down in history as having the most unappreciated song in the history of the contest. 32 countries could have voted for it - not one of them did and it ended last with 0 points.
FULL SEMI-FINAL RESULTS
1.(20) 263 points - Serbia & Montenegro - Lane moje - Zeljko Joksimovic & Ad Hoc Orchestra
2.(11) 256 points - Ukraine - Wild Dances - Ruslana
3.(10) 238 points - Greece - Shake It - Sakis Rouvas
4.(13) 167 points - Albania - Image Of You - Anjeza Shahini
5.(14) 149 points - Cyprus - Stronger Every Minute - Lisa Andreas
6.(22) 146 points - Netherlands - Without You - Re-Union
7.(21) 133 points - Bosnia & Herzegovina - In The Disco - Deen
8.(8 ) 74 points - Malta - On Again...Off Again - Julie & Ludwig
9.(18 ) 72 points - Croatia - You Are The Only One - Ivan Mikulic
10.(15) 71 points - Macedonia - Life Is - Tose Proeski
11.(5) 57 points - Israel - Leha'amin - David D'Or
(17) 57 points - Estonia - Tii - Neiokõsõ
13.(19) 56 points - Denmark - Shame On You - Tomas Thordarson
14.(1) 51 points - Finland - Two To Tango - Jari Sillanpää
15.(7) 38 points - Portugal - Foi Magia - Sofia Vitoria
16.(12) 26 points - Lithuania - What Happened To Our Love? - Linas & Simona
17.(4) 23 points - Latvia - Dziesma par laimi - Fomins & Kleins
18.(6) 12 points - Andorra - Jugarem a estimar-nos - Marta Roure
19.(2) 10 points - Belarus - My Galileo - Alexandra & Konstantin
(9) 10 points - Monaco - Notre planète - Maryon
21.(16) 5 points - Slovenia - Stay Forever - Platin
22.(3) 0 points - Switzerland - Celebrate - Piero & The Music Stars
The final of the 2004 contest took place 3 days after the semi-final. The 10 qualifying countries joined the 14 pre-qualified countries in the final. There were no returning artists in the final at all, although many of the backing singers had been here before. Also none of the entrants have returned to date. However there were a couple of entries written by previous participants. The Bosnian entry was written by Vesna Pisarovic who'd sung for Croatia 2 years previously. Stefan Raab wrote the German entry, which, unlike his previous 2 compositions, was not a comedy record. Serbian representative Zeljko Joksimovic would return to write the Bosnian entry 2 years later. The voting was a long winded process with all the 12 losing semi-finalists as well as the 24 finalists voting. Debutants Serbia & Montenegro held the lead for almost half the voting. When Iceland gave Ukraine 12 points they took the lead and were never challenged after that. The year after their debut Ukraine had won the contest. With 36 countries voting the scores at the top of the leaderboard were a lot larger than previously. The top 3 all outscored the previous highest score.
Results
1.(10) 280 points - Ukraine - Wild Dances - Ruslana
2.(5) 263 points - Serbia & Montenegro - Lane Moje - Zeljko Joksimovic & Ad Hoc Orchestra
3.(16) 252 points - Greece - Shake It! - Sakis Rouvas
4.(22) 195 points - Turkey - For Real - Athena
5.(21) 170 points - Cyprus - Stronger Every Minute - Lisa Andreas
(24) 170 points - Sweden - It Hurts - Lena Philipsson
7.(9) 107 points - Albania - The Image Of You - Anjeza Shahini
8.(8 ) 93 points - Germany - Can't Wait Until Tonight - Max
9.(12) 91 points - Bosnia & Herzegovina - In The Disco - Deen
10.(1) 87 points - Spain - Para llenarme de ti - Ramon
11.(14) 67 points - Russia - Believe Me - Julia Savicheva
12.(6) 50 points - Malta - On Again...Off Again - Julie & Ludwig
(11) 50 points - Croatia - You Are The Only One - Ivan Mikulic
14.(15) 47 points - Macedonia - Life Is - Tose Proeski
15.(4) 40 points - France - À chaque pas - Jonatan Cerrada
16.(20) 29 points - United Kingdom - Hold Onto Our Love - James Fox
17.(19) 27 points - Poland - Love Song - Blue Café
18.(23) 18 points - Romania - I Admit - Sanda Ladosi
19.(17) 16 points - Iceland - Heaven - Jonsi
20.(7) 11 points - Netherlands - Without You - Re-Union
21.(2) 9 points - Austria - Du bist - Tie Break
22.(13) 7 points - Belgium - 1 Life - Xandee
(18 ) 7 points - Ireland - If My World Stopped Turning
24.(3) 3 points - Norway - High - Knut Anders Sørum