Eurovision: Who Takes Part? Why Does It Include Israel And Australia?

The first Eurovision Song Contest was in 1956. And in the beginning, there were seven.

Long before the arrival of Eurovision icons like ABBA and Conchita Wurst, the first nations to bravely dip a tentative toe into the waters of the transcontinental songwriting competition were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and hosts Switzerland. And 66 years later, with the exception of Luxembourg which hasn't competed since 1993, they're all still there.

Having watched from afar and noticed that nothing exploded, other nations gradually drifted in. Austria, Denmark and the UK turned up in 1957, followed by Sweden (1958), Monaco (1959), Norway (1960) and, in 1961, a trio of fresh faces: Finland, Spain and Yugoslavia.

As technology developed, smaller and developing countries hopped aboard the annual bandwagon, including Portugal (1964), serial winners Ireland (1965) and Malta (1971). Then, in 1973, came a newcomer whose participation has prompted quizzical questions ever since: Israel.

Although viewers across Europe dug out their old school atlas to see if Israel was in Europe, they were wasting their time: the entry mechanism is not geographical, but is contingent on membership of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organizes and transmits the contest. The Israel Broadcasting Authority was in the EBU, so Israel was on the show – and won in 1978 (with the very Eurovision song title A-Ba-N-Bi) and 1979.

Greece (1974), Cyprus (1981) and Iceland (1986) began Eurovision participation which lasts to this day; Turkey (1975-2012) and Morocco (just 1980, thanks) less so. That took the number of contestants up to about 20 per year – but Europe was about to change significantly.

Enter the easterners

The Soviet-allied countries of Eastern Europe had held their own version of a continental get-together – the Intervision Song Contest – between 1977 and 1980 in Gdansk, Poland. (The 1981 event was canceled because of the rise of the Solidarity movement nearby, and they never got back round to rearranging it.)

But in 1987, it later emerged, the USSR's education minister suggested the country should enter the Western version. Leader Mikhail Gorbachev overruled it, and the EBU may not have allowed a non-member to partake anyway - but all that changed in the 1990s.

First, in 1993, came new countries from the former Yugoslavia: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia. The following year brought seven new entrants: Poland, Romania, Hungary, Estonia (which won in 2001, thus taking the following year's event behind the former Iron Curtain for the first time), Lithuania, Slovakia and Russia.