Eurovision Song Contest 05: Sweden wins 60 competition

M ns Zelmerl w, from Sweden, has been named the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. The Grand Final of the world's biggest live musical television event, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, took place on Saturday 23 May in Vienna, Austria.

M ns performed the power pop anthem Heroes which was written by Anton Malmberg H rd af Segerstad, Joy Deb and Linnea Deb. He finished the night with 365 points, 62 points ahead of 2nd placed Russia represented by Polina Gagarina singing "A Million Voices." Italy finished in third place.

It is the 6th time Sweden has won the event which has been staged annually since 1956. An estimated audience of 195 million viewers watched the Grand Final which was aired in 45 countries.

The 27 finalists included Australia which was invited to participate for the first time ever as part of the Contest's 60th anniversary celebrations. They performed live in front of an audience of 10,000 inside the Wiener Stadthalle in the Austrian capital. In total, 40 countries competed in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. 13 nations were knocked out in two Semi-Finals held on 19 and 21 May.

The winner was chosen by combining the votes of professional juries and viewers in all 40 participating countries. The jury votes were decided during a dress rehearsal on Friday night and the televotes were cast during Saturday s show.

The Grand Final was opened with a performance by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and last year's winner Conchita Wurst

Around 3,000 people worked on the event at the Weiner Stadthalle on the day of the Grand Final including 800 local volunteers. In total 3,500 tonnes of technical equipment and 26 cameras were used inside the Arena to bring the show to the millions watching around the world.

Over 1,600 journalists from 85 countries were also in the host city Vienna to cover the event.

The 60th Eurovision Song Contest was broadcast live in the 40 participating countries by EBU Members: ORF (Austria), PTV (Armenia), RTSH (Albania), ICTIMAI (Azerbaijan), BTRC (Belarus), VRT (Belgium), RTBF (Belgium), CyBC (Cyprus), T (Czech Republic), DR (Denmark), ERR (Estonia),YLE (Finland), GPB (Georgia), ARD (Germany), ERT (Greece), MTV (Hungary), R V (Iceland), RT (Ireland), IBA (Israel), RAI (Italy), LTV (Latvia), LRT (Lithuania), RTCG (Montenegro), MRT (FYROM), PBS (Malta), TRM (Moldova), RTCG (Montenegro), AVROTROS (The Netherlands), NRK (Norway), TVP (Poland), RTP (Portugal), TVR (Romania), Channel 1 (Russia), SMRTV (San Marino), RTS (Serbia), RTVSLO (Slovenia), RTVE (Spain), SVT (Sweden), SRG SSR (Switzerland) and BBC (United Kingdom).

EBU Associate Member SBS (Australia) also broadcast the event live. SBS has televised the Contest in Australia for over 30 years.

The 4 hour Grand Final was also broadcast live in China, New Zealand, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Kosovo and will be aired later in Canada.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was a co-production between the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and sterreichischer Rundfunk (ORF).

The full list and profiles of participants for the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, with high resolution photos, can be found on the official website, Eurovision.tv.

LINK:	http://www3.ebu.ch/contents/news/2015/05/eurovision-song-contest-2015-...
	See more stories from ebu

Most recent headlines