The Eurovision Song Contest  is the longest-running annual international TV song competition. It has been held, primarily, among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The competition was based upon the existing Sanremo Music Festival held in Italy since 1951.

Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the competition's winning entry. The contest has been broadcast every year for sixty-two years, since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also one of the most watched non-sporting events in the world, with audience figures in recent years quoted as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. Eurovision has also been broadcast outside Europe to several countries that do not compete, such as the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and China. An exception was made in 2015, when Australia was allowed to compete as a guest entrant as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the event In November 2015, the EBU announced that Australia was invited back as a participant in the 2016 contest after their success in 2015. Following their success again in 2016, Australia competed again in 2017. Since 2000, the contest has also been broadcast over the Internet via the Eurovision website.

Winning the Eurovision Song Contest often provides a short-term boost to the winning artists' career, but rarely results in long-term success.Notable exceptions are ABBA (winner in 1974 for Sweden), Bucks Fizz (winner in 1981 for the United Kingdom) and Céline Dion(winner in 1988 for Switzerland), all of whom launched successful worldwide careers after their wins.

Ireland holds the record for most victories, having won the contest seven times—including four times in five years in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1996. Under the current voting system, th highest scoring winner isSalvador Sobral of Portugal who won the 2017 contest in Kiev, Ukraine, with 758 points. Under the previous system, in place from 1975 to 2015, the highest scoring winner was Alexander Rybak of Norway with 387 points in 2009.

Origins

As a war-torn Europe was rebuilding itself in the 1950s, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)—based in Switzerland—set up an ad hoc committee to search for ways of bringing together the countries of the EBU around a "light entertainment programme". At a committee meeting held in Monaco in January 1955 with Marcel Bezençon of the Swiss television as chairman, the committee conceived the idea (initially proposed by Sergio Pugliese of the Italian television RAI) of an international song contest where countries would participate in one television programme to be transmitted simultaneously across all countries of the union. The competition was based upon the existing Sanewmo Music Festival held in Italy and was seen as a technological experiment in live television. In those days it was a very ambitious project to join many countries together in a wide-area international network. Satellite television did not exist and the Eurovision Network comprised a terrestrial microwave network. The concept, then known as "Eurovision Grand Prix", was approved by the EBU General Assembly in a meeting held in Rome on 19 October 1955, and it was decided that the first contest would take place in spring 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland. The name "Eurovision" was first used in relation to the EBU's network by British journalist George Campey in the London Evening Standard in 1951.

The first contest was held in the town of Lugano, Switzerland, on 24 May 1956. Seven countries participated—each submitting two songs, for a total of 14. This was the only contest in which more than one song per country was performed: since 1957, all contests have allowed one entry per country. The 1956 contest was won by the host nation, Switzerland.

Naming

The programme was first known as the "Eurovision Grand Prix" (in English). This "Grand Prix" name was adopted by Germany, Denmark, Norway and the Francophone countries, with the French designation being Le Grand-Prix Eurovision de la Chanson Européenne. The "Grand Prix" was dropped in 1973 and replaced with Concours (contest) in French and in 2001 with the English name in German, but not in Danish or Norwegian. The Eurovision network is used to carry many news and sports programmes internationally, among other specialised events organised by the EBU. However, in the minds of the public, the name "Eurovision" is most closely associated with the Song Contest.

The Big Five

Since 2000, France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom have automatically qualified for the final, regardless of their positions on the scoreboard in previous contests, as they are the four biggest financial contributors to the EBU. These countries became known as the "Big Four". On 31 December 2010, it was announced that Italy would compete in the Eurovision Song Contest after a fourteen-year absence and that it would also automatically qualify for the final, joining the other four qualifiers to become the "Big Five", considered by some to be a controversial decision. Germany became the first and, as of 2017, the only "Big Five" country to win the contest since the rule was made in 2000, when Lena-Meyer-Landrut won the 2010 Contest. Turkey withdrew from the 2013 Contest with the status of the "Big Five" being one of the reasons cited. They also did not participate in the following 4 years' of contests (2014–17) for similar reasons, as well as stating their opposition to the 50/50 jury and televoting system that began being applied in the final of the 2009 Contest.

The only country in the Big 5 (since 2011) that never came last in the finals is Italy.