Eurovision Song Contest 2016

The **Eurovision Song Contest 2016** was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in the Ericsson Globe in the Swedish capital Stockholm following the country’s victory at the 2015 Contest in Vienna with the song "Heroes", performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. This was the third time the Contest had taken place in Stockholm, after 1975 and 2000, the latter also being held at the Globe. It consisted of two semi-finals on 10 and 12 May and the final on 14 May 2016, with all three live shows hosted by Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede.

The winner of the contest was Ukraine with the song "1944", written and performed by Jamala. This was the country’s second win and its first since 2004. This was the first time since the introduction of professional jury voting in 2009 that the overall winner won neither the jury vote, which was won by Australia, nor the televote, which was won by Russia, with Ukraine placing second in both. It was also the first song with lyrics in Crimean Tatar to win or enter the contest.

Forty-two countries participated in the contest. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine returned after absences from recent contests, while Australia also returned after debuting as a special guest in 2015. Portugal withdrew, largely due to their national broadcaster's insufficient promotion of their music-based media, while Romania had originally planned to participate, but was forced to withdraw due to repeated non-payment of debts by their national broadcaster to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The contest was also the first to implement a voting system change since 1975: each country's professional jury points were announced largely as before, while the results of each national televote were combined and announced in reverse order.

Twenty-six countries competed in the final, which was the first to be broadcast on live television in the United States. The Czech Republic managed to qualify for the final for the first time in five attempts since its debut in 2007, while both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, the latter being absent from the final for the first time since 2000. In the final, Australia finished second, improving on its debut in 2015, while Bulgaria finished fourth, its best result at the time since its debut and first participation in a final since 2007. Justin Timberlake performed during the interval act of the final. A record-breaking 204 million viewers worldwide watched the contest, beating the 2015 viewing figures by over 5 million.

## Location

### **Venue**

The contest took place in the Ericssn Globe in Stockholm, following Sweden's victory at the 2015 Contest in Vienna with the song "Heroes", performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. The Ericsson Globe has a capacity of approximately 16,000 attendees, and this was the second time the contest has been staged at the venue, after the Eurovision Song Contest 2000.

### **Bidding phase**

Host broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) announced on 24 May, the day after winning the 2015 contest, that the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm was their first choice venue. However, other cities and arenas were invited to apply, and those making a bid had approximately three weeks to submit their offer to SVT.

SVT announced on 1 June the conditions under which cities and venues could announce their interest in hosting the contest:

* SVT had to have access to the venue at least 4–6 weeks before the contest to build the stage and rig up lighting and technology.
* A press centre with a specific size had to be made available at the venue.
* A specific number of hotels and hotel rooms had to be made available in the vicinity of the venue.
* The host city had to be near a major airport.

An announcement no matter the venue was expected from SVT by midsummer, with the Ericsson Globe announced as the venue on 8 July.

## Format

The preliminary dates for the contest were announced on 16 March 2015 at a meeting of Heads of Delegation in Vienna, with the semi-finals took place on 10 and 12 May and the final on 14 May 2016. These were subject to change depending on SVT, but were later confirmed when Stockholm was announced as the host city.

Discussions were held in 2014 between the EBU and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) regarding the inclusion of a guest performance from the ABU TV Song Festival at the contest. The EBU confirmed on 16 July 2015 that they are looking into the possibility of the proposal, which was discussed at the ABU General Assembly in 2014.

SVT proposed a change of start time of the contest from 21:00 CEST to 20:00 CEST on 9 September, arguing that such a change would help to promote family viewing of the contest, especially in eastern Europe when it would run late into the night. However, the EBU published the public rules of the contest on 28 October, which stated that the start time would remain at 21:00 CEST.

The EBU announced on 23 September that rather than using clips from their respective music videos, extended clips from the dress rehearsals of the six acts who qualified directly to the final (the "Big Five" and Sweden) would be shown as previews during the semi-final in which they were allocated to vote.

The core team for the contest was announced by SVT and the EBU on 26 October. Johan Bernhagen and Martin Österdahl were Executive Producers, while Tobias Åberg was Head of Production. The three live shows were directed by Sven Stojanović and the contest was produced by Christer Björkman.

### **New voting system**

The EBU announced on 18 February 2016 that a new voting system would be implemented at the contest for the first time since 1975. The new system, inspired by the voting system of Melodifestivalen, involves each country now awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Televoting votes from all countries are pooled. After viewers have cast their votes, the results of each professional jury are presented, with countries receiving 1-8 and 10 points being displayed on-screen instead of 1-7, which had been the case since 2006, and the national spokesperson announcing only the country to which they award 12 points. After the results of the professional juries are presented, the televoting points from all participating countries are combined, providing one score for each song. The results of countries finishing between 11th and 26th in the public vote are automatically added to the scoreboard, with only the results of the top ten countries being announced by the hosts. The new voting system is also used to determine the qualifiers from each semi-final, but as before the qualifiers are announced in a random order.

As the new voting system gives equal weight to jury and televoting results, a national jury result cannot be used as backup result for the televoting or vice versa. Therefore, if a country cannot deliver a valid televoting/jury result, a substitute result is calculated by the jury/televoting result of a pre-selected group of countries approved by the contest's Reference Group. The Director General of Radiotelevisione della Repubblica di San Marino (SMRTV), Carlo Romeo, stated on 23 February that the use of a substitute televoting result discriminated against microstates like San Marino, which only used a professional jury due to their use of the Italian phone system and would therefore have its voting representation diminished under the new system, and criticised the EBU for not contacting its members before making the decision.

### **Other Eurovision events**

The EBU announced on 14 March 2016 that the Tele2 Arena in Stockholm would host a live event running alongside the final of the contest on 14 May. *Eurovision The Party*, hosted by Sanna Nielsen, allowed fans to watch the final on a big screen and featured backstage material from the Ericsson Globe such as Nielsen conducting exclusive interviews and appearing with hosts Petra Mede and Måns Zelmerlöw. The results of the Swedish jury vote was also announced live from the event by Gina Dirawi. A pre-party and after-party was also held and featured performances from former contest winners Carolaand Loreen as well as Danny Saucedo, Panetoz and DJ Tim Henri. Executive Producer of the contest Johan Bernhagen has stated that the event complements existing events being held at the Eurovision Village and the EuroClub, and it is hoped that *Eurovision The Party* would become an annual event in the host city of the contest.

### **Presenters**

 File:ESC2016 Hosts 01 (crop).jpg
After his victory in the 2015 contest, Måns Zelmerlöw announced his interest in hosting the 2016 contest. His experience as a television presenter includes Melodifestivalen 2010 and SVT sing-along show *Allsång på Skansen.* Christer Björkman told *Expressen* on 25 May that Gina Dirawi, Petra Mede and Sanna Nielsen were also being considered as hosts, but it was reported on 1 June that SVT was considering Zelmerlöw and Dolph Lundgren as co-hosts. *Expressen* reported on 19 August that Mede and Zelmerlöw were SVT's first choice of hosts, with SVT announcing at a press conference on 14 December that they would indeed co-host.

The press conferences were presented by Jovan Radomir and Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson, who also provided commentary from the red carpet event in front of the Stockholm Palace, before the official welcome party at Stockholm City Hall on 8 May 2016.

### **Semi-final allocation draw**

The draw to determine the allocation of the participating countries into their respective semi-finals took place at Stockholm City Hall on 25 January 2016, hosted by Alexandra Pascalidou and Jovan Radomir. The first part of the draw determined in which semi-final the "Big Five" and Sweden would have to vote. The second part of the draw decided in which half of the respective semi-finals each country would perform, with the exact running order determined by the producers of the show at a later date. The EBU originally announced that the running order would be revealed on 5 April, however for undisclosed reasons this was later put back to 8 April. Eighteen countries participated in the first semi-final, while nineteen countries were planned to participate in the second semi-final, but this was reduced to eighteen on 22 April due to the forced withdrawal of Romania. From each semi-final, ten countries joined the "Big 5" and Sweden in the final, where a total of twenty-six countries participated.

The thirty-seven semi-finalists were allocated into six pots, which were published by the EBU on 21 January, based on historical voting patterns as calculated by the contest's official televoting partner Digame. Drawing from different pots helps in reducing the chance of so-called neighbour voting and increasing suspense in the semi-finals. Sweden and Germany were pre-allocated to vote and perform in the first and second semi-final respectively due to requests from their respective broadcaster, which were approved by the EBU.

* Bosnia and Herzegovina
* Croatia
* North Macedonia
* Montenegro
* Serbia
* Slovenia
* Estonia
* Finland
* Iceland
* Latvia
* Norway
* Azerbaijan
* Belarus
* Georgia
* Russia
 Pot 4
 * Australia
* Belgium
* Bulgaria
* Cyprus
* Greece
* Netherlands
* Ireland
* Lithuania
* Malta
* Poland
* San Marino
* Hungary
* Israel
* Moldova
* ~~Romania~~
* Switzerland

## Participating countries

### Semi Final 1

Eighteen countries participated in the first semi-final.  France,  Spain, and  Sweden voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

### Semi Final 2

Eighteen countries participated in the second semi-final.  Germany,  Italy, and the  United Kingdom voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

### Finalists

26 countries participated in the final, with all 42 participating countries eligible to vote. The running order for the final was revealed after the second semi-final qualifiers' press conference on 13 May.