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.

Istanbul was chosen as the host city of the 2004 edition following Turkey's victory in the 2003 contest in Riga, Latvia with "Everyway That I Can" by Sertab Erener. Originally the Mydonose Showland, an entertainment center in the form of a giant pyramid tent near Atatürk International Airport, was chosen by Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to host the event, but the venue was later changed to the Abdi İpekçi Arena as the contest approached due to its bigger capacity. The Mydonose Showland, later renamed the Istanbul Show Center, was demolished in 2009 after a fire destroyed it in April that year. The Abdi İpekçi Arena was closed after the 2016/2017 basketball season and was demolished in early 2018.

A number of other venues in the city were reported as possible venues, these included Ataköy Athletics Arena and Istanbul Lütfi Kırdar International Convention and Exhibition Center (ICEC), the latter of which lost out to Mydonose Showland. Istanbul Chamber of Commerce president Mehmet Yıldırım offered the World Trade Center Istanbul (WTCI) as a venue for the event and confirmed that the Chamber would also provide financial support for the contest's organisation.

This year's Eurovision contest was the first to be a two-day event, with one qualifying round held on a Wednesday and the grand final held on the following Saturday. Under this new format, byes into the final were given to the 'Big 4'; France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom –whose broadcasters were the largest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)– and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2003 contest.

Andorra, Albania, Belarus, and Serbia and Montenegro participated in the contest for the first time, with Monaco returning after a 25-year absence. Luxembourg were due to return after an absence of 11 years, but later pulled out after money issues arose between RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg (RTL) and the EBU. Hungary was also due to return after last participating in 1998, but ultimately they did not take part in the contest. Hungary would eventually return to the contest the following year, while Luxembourg would not return to the contest until 2024.

All participating countries had the right to vote in both the qualifying round and the grand final. This was the first year in which all 36 participating countries voted based on a public phone vote, in the final. However France, Poland, and Russia did not broadcast the semi-final (as they were not participating in it) and therefore did not give votes for it like the other thirty-three countries. In Belgium, the French-language Radio-télévision belge de la Communauté française (RTBF) did not broadcast the semi-final, but the Dutch-language Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (VRT) did. Monaco's televoting results in the semi-final were rendered invalid and a back-up jury had to be used, but no problems occurred in the final.