International song competition
The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the 2015 contest with the song "Heroes" by Måns Zelmerlöw. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (SVT), the contest was held at the Globe Arena and consisted of two semi-finals on 10 and 12 May, and a final on 14 May 2016. The three live shows were presented by Petra Mede and the previous year's winner Måns Zelmerlöw.
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 did not enter, largely due to their national broadcaster's insufficient promotion of its music-based media, while Romania had planned to participate, but was disqualified due to repeated non-payment of debts by its national broadcaster to the EBU.
The winner was Ukraine with the song "1944", performed and written by Jamala. Australia, Russia, Bulgaria and host country Sweden rounded out the top five. 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. "1944" is the first song containing lyrics in Crimean Tatar to win the contest.
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's second-place finish was an improvement on its fifth-place finish in 2015, while Bulgaria finished fourth, its best result since its debut and first participation in a final since 2007.
The contest was 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. It was also the first contest to be broadcast on live television in the United States, and the EBU recorded a record-breaking 204 million viewers for the contest, beating the 2015 viewing figures by over 5 million.
Location.
Venue.
The contest took place in the Globe Arena in Stockholm, following Sweden's victory at the 2015 contest. The Globe Arena 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 (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:
An announcement regarding the venue was expected from SVT by midsummer, with the Ericsson Globe announced as the venue on 8 July.
Key
 ;templatestyles src="Legend/styles.css" / ; †  Host venue
Other sites.
The Eurovision Village was the official Eurovision Song Contest fan and sponsors' area during the events week. There it was possible to watch performances by local artists, as well as the live shows broadcast from the main venue. Located at Kungsträdgården in Stockholm, it was open from 6 to 13 May 2016.
The EuroClub was the venue for the official after-parties and private performances by contest participants. Unlike the Eurovision Village, access to the EuroClub was restricted to accredited fans, delegates, and press. It was located in a temporary building on the quay next to the water in front of the Royal Palace of Stockholm.
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 Globe Arena 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 Carola and Loreen as well as Danny Saucedo, Panetoz and DJ Tim Henri. Executive producer 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.
Participating countries.
Eligibility for potential participation in the Eurovision Song Contest requires a national broadcaster with active EBU membership capable of receiving the contest via the Eurovision network and broadcasting it live nationwide. The EBU issued an invitation to participate in the contest to all active members and associate member Australia.
Participating countries had until 15 September 2015 to submit their applications for participation in the contest, and until 10 October to withdraw their applications without facing financial sanctions. It had been initially announced on 26 November 2015 that 43 countries would participate in the contest, equalling the record number of participants set in 2008 and 2011. However, Romania was disqualified from participation on 22 April 2016, subsequently reducing the number of participating countries to 42.
Four countries returned after absences from recent contests: Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2012, Bulgaria and Croatia since 2013 and Ukraine since 2014. Australia also returned after debuting as a special guest in 2015, but by invitation of the EBU due to the associate membership status of the Special Broadcasting Service. However, instead of pre-qualifying for the final and voting in all three live shows, as was the case in 2015, Australia entered the second semi-final and voted only in that semi-final and the final. Portugal did not enter, largely due to its national broadcaster's insufficient promotion of their music-based media, as well as a poorly structured selection process, while Romania was disqualified on 22 April 2016 due to repeated non-payment of debts by their national broadcaster to the EBU.
Returning artists.
Seven artists returned after having previously participated in the contest. Deen returned after previously representing Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2004, finishing ninth in the final with the song "In the Disco". Kaliopi returned after previously representing Macedonia in 2012, finishing 13th in the final with the song "Crno i belo". She was also selected to represent Macedonia in 1996 with "Samo ti", but was eliminated in a non-televised pre-qualifying round. Poli Genova returned after previously representing Bulgaria in 2011, finishing 12th in the second semi-final with the song "Na inat". Ira Losco returned after previously representing Malta in 2002, finishing in second place with the song "7th Wonder". Donny Montell returned after previously representing Lithuania in 2012, finishing 14th in the final with the song "Love Is Blind". Greta Salóme returned after previously representing Iceland in 2012 with Jónsi, finishing 20th in the final with the song "Never Forget". Bojan Jovović returned for Montenegro as part of Highway after previously representing Serbia and Montenegro in 2005 as part of No Name, finishing seventh in the final with the song "Zauvijek moja".
Armenian backing vocalist Monica previously represented Armenia in Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008. Sahlene, who represented Estonia in 2002, returned as a backing vocalist for Australia. Martina Majerle, who represented Slovenia in 2009 and provided backing vocals numerous times for Croatia 2003, Montenegro 2008, 2014 and Slovenia 2007, 2011, 2012, returned as a backing vocalist for Croatia.
Other countries.
Active EBU members.
Active EBU member broadcasters in Andorra, Luxembourg, Monaco, Slovakia (despite the country's return to the Eurovision Young Dancers in 2015) and Turkey confirmed non-participation prior to the announcement of the participants list by the EBU. Lebanese broadcaster TL had not ruled out debuting in 2016, but it ultimately did not appear on the final list of participating countries.
Associate EBU members.
The EBU announced on 18 December 2015 that Kazakh broadcaster Khabar Agency would become an associate EBU member on 1 January 2016. However, Kazakhstan would be unable to debut at the contest as eligibility for participation requires a national broadcaster with active EBU membership.
Non-EBU members.
Despite the EBU's positive response to Chinese broadcaster Hunan Television's interest in participating, in June 2015 the union denied that China would debut at the contest. That same month, it was reported that Faroese broadcaster KVF had applied for active EBU membership in order to take part in the contest; the application was rejected due to the islands' membership of the Danish Realm.
Despite Kosovo not being recognised by 15 states in Europe and its broadcaster RTK having neither active nor associate EBU membership, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Petrit Selimi tweeted that the country would debut at the 2016 contest, without further elaboration; this was promptly denied by the EBU. Liechtensteiner broadcaster 1 FL TV was also unable to debut at the contest due to insufficient funding for EBU membership.
Format.
The preliminary dates for the contest were announced on 16 March 2015 at a Heads of Delegation meeting in Vienna, with the semi-finals taking 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 would be 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 host nation 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, involved each country 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 the countries would be pooled. After viewers cast their votes, the results of each professional jury would be presented, with countries receiving 1–8 and 10 points being displayed on-screen, instead of 1–7 as 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 were presented, the televoting points from all participating countries would be combined, providing one score for each song. The new voting system would also be 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 would give equal weight to jury and televoting results, a national jury result could not be used as a backup result for the televoting or vice versa. Therefore, if a country could not deliver a valid televoting/jury result, a substitute result would be 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