About the Eurovision Song Contest
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) was founded with the aim of bringing together public service broadcasters across Europe, strengthening ties between nations, and fostering the exchange of knowledge and expertise.
To support this mission, the EBU established the Euroradio and Eurovision networks, enabling the sharing of programmes, news, and sports content among its member broadcasters.
The Eurovision Song Contest itself emerged from this broader vision as a bold experiment in television broadcasting - a live, simultaneous, transnational spectacle that, while familiar today, was a remarkable technological achievement at the time of its inception.
In the beginning...
The first Eurovision Song Contest took place on May 24, 1956, with seven participating broadcasters competing. These came from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, West Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Italy.
The invite had been extended to all EBU member broadcasters; Austria and Denmark wanted to take part but missed the deadline, and the United Kingdom sent their apologies as they were busy with their own contest that year.
Each participating broadcaster submitted two songs, with Switzerland’s Lys Assia triumphing with her second song Refrain; the French language number fared better than her first ditty, Das alte Karussell.
Over the years the format has evolved into the week-long, boundary pushing, digitally native, multi-show spectacular we enjoy today… but how did the Eurovision Song Contest first come about?
The organisation...
As television services began to spread across much of Europe, the EBU established the Eurovision Network in 1954 to facilitate the exchange and co-production of shared programming. The initiative was designed to drive innovation, promote cultural exchange, and expand the range of content available to national broadcasters in a cost-effective way.
After the Eurovision Network broadcast its first programmes in 1954 in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and West Germany, discussions ensued in the EBU as to how its co-productions could be made more entertaining and spectacular.
Following suggestions put forward at the meeting of its Programme Committee in Monte Carlo, Monaco in 1955, the EBU decided at the session of its General Assembly in Rome later in that year to establish the Eurovision Song Contest.
The inspiration for the Contest came from Italian broadcaster RAI, which had been staging Festival di Sanremo (the Sanremo Italian Song Festival) in the seaside resort town of the same name since 1951.
Members of the Eurovision Programme Committee attended the Sanremo Italian Song Festival in 1955, when it was also broadcast through the Eurovision Network. Yet, for technical reasons, the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 was not held in Italy but in Switzerland: its geographical centrality in Europe made it a natural node for the terrestrial transmitters required for this experiment in live, simultaneous, transnational broadcasting.
As the years went on, the Eurovision Song Contest became bigger and bigger, and with the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, there was a sudden increase in eligible Member broadcasters, with many former Eastern Bloc countries queuing up to compete for the first time.
For this reason, the Semi-Final format was introduced by the EBU in 2004, which turned into two Semi-Finals for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008.
Now all countries, except the 'Big Five'/’Big Four’ (the Contest’s biggest financial contributors: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), together with the host country, must compete in the Semi-Finals to qualify for the Grand Final.
The format...
A detailed set of rules governs each edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and is approved by a Reference Group (an executive committee made up from Member broadcaster representatives and the EBU in order to steer the Contest).
These rules define key aspects of the contest, including song eligibility, the competition format, innovations, the voting system and how results are announced, as well as the Contest’s core values and the distribution and broadcasting rights for television, radio, and streaming.
In general terms today, the rules ensure that entries meet eligibility criteria, the competition is fairly structured and transparently judged through a combined jury and public vote system, and that participating broadcasters follow shared standards for presentation and broadcasting.
Since the first edition, the rules have evolved significantly to reflect changes in music, broadcasting technology, and audience engagement, but broadly speaking, nowadays all participating broadcasters must submit one original song, no more than three minutes in length, and it must be performed live on stage by no more than 6 artists.
In the first few Contests it seemed obvious to artists that they should enter songs sung in their native tongue, but as the event expanded and grew in popularity, songwriters began to assume that the more universal the lyrics, the more likely the song would resonate with juries. Which could explain the popularity of classic Contest winners like Boom Bang-a-Bang and La La La.
The rule on performing in one of your country’s official languages changed over the years, alongside rules regarding the number of performers on stage, the inclusion of dance moves, and more recently the use of backing track vocals (brought in to reduce the number of delegation members needed to travel during the COVID-19 pandemic).
Alongside the competition itself, EBU Member broadcasters use the format as a platform to collaborate, experiment, and advance innovative technologies that enhance audience entertainment. This has included milestones such as the transition from black-and-white to colour television, the development of Next Generation Audio, and creative production tools like props, scoreboards, and on-screen augmentations.
Fans may not know - or care - about compression formats or the difference between interlaced and progressive video, but the Eurovision Song Contest has long given broadcasters a platform to advance industry standards.
For example, at the 2006 Contest in Athens, pioneering HD tests led by ERT in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, RAI, the BBC and others helped accelerate the adoption of high-definition television broadcasts we now take for granted.
The Eurovision Song Contest format is always evolving to provide the most exciting show for its millions of viewers across the planet.
The voting system...
The specific voting systems used in the Contest have changed throughout the years, but the well-known format of awarding sets of points from 1 to 8, then 10 and finally 12 (‘douze points’), has been in place since 1975.
Historically, a country's set of votes was decided by an internal jury, but in 1997 five countries experimented with televoting, giving members of the public in those countries the opportunity to vote en masse for their favourite songs. The experiment was a success and from 1998 all countries were encouraged to use televoting wherever possible.
Nowadays members of the public may also vote by SMS and online wherever they are in the world. Whichever method of voting is used - jury, telephone or SMS - countries may not cast votes for their own songs.
The future...
In the seven decades since its inception, the Eurovision Song Contest has transformed from a live television experiment into a truly global, multi-platform cultural event. While its foundation remains rooted in public service broadcasting, its reach today extends far beyond traditional television audiences, reflecting the ways in which media consumption has evolved in the digital age.
Streaming platforms and online viewing have fundamentally reshaped how audiences engage with the Contest. On YouTube alone, Eurovision Song Contest content generates billions of views each year, with iconic performances and recent entries being watched and shared far beyond participating countries.
Social media has also become central to the Contest experience, allowing artists, delegations, and fans to connect in real time, and turning performances into global conversations that begin months before the Grand Final and continue long after a winner is crowned.
As technologies develop, so too does the Eurovision Song Contest as it continues to evolve as a shared cultural moment.
