Eurovision Song Contest 2004

The Eurovision Song Contest 2004 was the 49th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted —for the first time— of a semi-final on 12 May and a final on 15 May 2004, held at the Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey, and presented by Korhan Abay and Meltem Cumbul. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), who staged the event after winning the 2003 contest for Turkey with the song "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. It was also the first time since the 1998 contest in Birmingham that it was not hosted in the host country's capital city.

Broadcasters from thirty-six countries participated in the contest, beating the record of twenty-six in the previous edition. Albania, Andorra, Belarus, and Serbia and Montenegro took part for the first time this year. The old relegation system was replaced with a semi-final format. This was done in order to accommodate the increasing number of countries who wished to participate. The new format allowed all countries to participate every year, rather than being forced to sit out per the relegation rules, which had been the standard since 1994. Because of this, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Macedonia, Monaco, and Switzerland all returned to the contest, Monaco not having competed since 1979.

The winner was Ukraine with the song "Wild Dances", performed by Ruslana who wrote it with her husband Oleksandr Ksenofontov. This was Ukraine's first victory in the contest, only one year after the country made its debut in 2003. Serbia and Montenegro, Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus rounded out the top five, with Greece and Cyprus both equalling its previous best results. Meanwhile, Ireland finished in 22nd place, giving the nation its worst placement up to that point. Due to the expansion of the contest, this year was the first time in which a non-winning entry scored over 200 points. Prior to this contest, only the winning entries for Ireland in 1994 and the United Kingdom in 1997 had passed this mark. In this contest, the top 3 songs all got over 200 points. An official CD was released and, for the first time, the entire contest was released on DVD which included the semi-final and the final.