This was really the year that put back even more focus to the most entertaining part of the contest: the voting!
Due to the expansion of the contest over the previous few years, this year we saw 37 countries participating and 38 voting (we’ll get to that shortly). This meant that the almost hour and half long voting sequence from 2005 was a no-go, and this was the first year that points 1-7 showed up on screen without getting announced by the commentators. That is the system that has inspired the current sequence, which has commentators only giving out the 12 points.
Talking of commentators, they really left a mark on this contest. The most memorable was absolutely Paul de Leeuw from The Netherlands, who not only gave out all the points (including 1-7, in a very fast sequence) but also made history by flirting with the host Sakis Rouvas. In their (some say comedic, some say cringe) exchange, De Leeuw told Rouvas that him and his co-host, Maria Menounos, looked like “Will & Grace.” This followed De Leeuw offering his phone number to Rouvas, who said “Let me guess – is it 69-69-69.” Unforgettable.
Another commentator left a mark: Serbia & Montenegro’s Duška Vučinić-Lučić. As a matter of fact, Serbia & Montenegro left a mark due to a very unique circumstance – they did not actually participate in the Contest, but were allowed to vote. They withdrew from the contest due to a scandal in their national selection, where juries from Montenegro actively ignored favourites from Serbia, only awarding points to songs sent from Montenegro. This led to another victory by their representatives from 2005, No Name, who ended up getting boo-ed off stage by the audience. The voting reflected tensions in the country ahead of the Montenegrin independence referendum that was held just one day after the Eurovision final. During Eurovision’s voting sequence, the Serbia & Montenegro commentator, Vučinić-Lučić, said that while they may not participate this year, they’ll come back next year with the best song. And that is what happened (albeit for Serbia, not Montenegro), as in 2007 Serbia won with Marija Šerifović’s “Molitva.”
In the voting sequence as well, some interesting results came to be. Finland won for the first time after over 40 years of participating, and did so in-spite of the odds. They were actually 12th in the betting odds, but ultimately managed to win and break the points record with 292 points. Funnily enough, they had the same number of points in the semi-final as well! They had received 8 sets of 12 points (just like 3rd placed Bosnia & Herzegovina – a best for them too), missing out on points only from three countries. Lordi’s massive victory reignited interest in Eurovision not only in Finland (where Lordi became national icons), but also across Europe. They showed that different music and presentation still had a place in the Contest, after years of Eurovision-generic top performers in the early 2000s.