Eurovision Song Contest 2009

The 2009 contest took place in Moscow on 12, 14 and 16 May, with two semi-finals followed by the grand final.¹ Russia hosted after Dima Bilan won the 2008 competition with "Believe." The venue was the Olympic Indoor Arena, one of the largest indoor arenas in the country. Forty-two countries entered, although Georgia withdrew before the shows after the European Broadcasting Union ruled that its selected song, "We Don't Wanna Put In," breached the contest's political-content rules.⁶ Russia, as the previous winner, and the so-called Big Four—France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom—were guaranteed places in the final. The remaining finalists qualified through the two semi-finals, creating a 25-song final field.

Norway won the grand final with Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale," combining a contemporary pop arrangement with violin-led folk elements.² Its 387 points established a record under the scoring system then in use; Iceland finished second with Yohanna's "Is It True?" and Azerbaijan placed third with AySel and Arash performing "Always." Rybak's margin and energetic staging made the Norwegian entry the clear competitive centerpiece, while the result also demonstrated the continuing importance of regional voting patterns and broad televoter appeal. The official running order placed Norway as the 20th performance, followed by Greece and then Ukraine, giving the winning entry a prominent position in the second half of the show.²

The 2009 edition marked a transition in Eurovision voting, because the grand-final result was based on a combination of public televoting and national juries rather than televoting alone.⁵ The jury component was intended to strengthen musical assessment and reduce the effect of organized or highly regional voting, although the exact balance and implementation differed from later Eurovision systems. The Moscow production used a large circular stage, extensive LED surfaces and a satellite-like visual motif associated with the host broadcaster's presentation. Natalia Vodianova and Andrey Malakhov hosted the semi-finals, while Malakhov and Alsou presented the grand final. The event also included interval appearances by former winners and internationally known Russian performers, linking the competition to the host country's popular-music industry.¹

The 2009 contest contained several details that are easy to miss behind Norway's emphatic victory. It was the first Eurovision edition to use two semi-finals with a final allocation that included ten qualifiers from each show, alongside the automatic finalists.⁶ The contest's political-content dispute did not concern an explicit party endorsement: the EBU objected to the wording and perceived political reference in Georgia's entry, and Georgia ultimately chose not to submit a replacement song. Norway's winning performer, Alexander Rybak, was born in Minsk, Belarus, before moving to Norway as a child, giving the winning entry a transnational background that reflected Eurovision's mixture of national representation and mobile European identities. The 2009 event also helped normalize the renewed jury role that became a central feature of subsequent contests.

Big Four

The four highest-financing EBU members—France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom—which traditionally received direct access to the final.

Televoting

A public voting method in which viewers select entries by telephone or text message.

National jury

A country-appointed panel of music professionals whose rankings contribute to a Eurovision result.

European Broadcasting Union

The alliance of public-service media organizations that owns and organizes the Eurovision Song Contest.