Eurovision Song Contest 2003 - Aftermath

Aftermath

Turkey's victory meant that it would stage the 2004 contest. During the week of the contest, the EBU unveiled a two-night system for the contest in 2004: a semi-final would be held before a grand final. The "Big Four", along with the top ten from the 2003 contest, would automatically qualify for the 2004 final. The fourteen eventual qualifiers were Turkey, Belgium, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Poland, Spain, Iceland, Romania, Ireland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. All the other countries would compete in the semi.

After the contest, Russia's Channel One complained that Irish broadcaster RTÉ had used a back-up jury, and that it had cost them victory. A statement by Channel One said "Considering insignificant difference in points between the first and third places, there are grounds to believe that the contest results could be much different for Russia." RTÉ responded by publishing the unused results of the Irish televote, which showed that had the jury not been used, Turkey would still have won, and Ireland's voting "partners", the United Kingdom, would still have no points.

The United Kingdom's last-place finish was greeted with much consternation in the British media. Terry Wogan, long-time commentator on the contest for the BBC, said that the UK was suffering from "post-Iraq backlash". Chris Cromby from Jemini said "The monitors were off. Maybe it was sabotage, but we couldn't hear anything...we used the floor monitors, the others used their own." The UK's result was their worst-ever at Eurovision; by contrast, Turkey's win was their first. Alf Poier's sixth place was Austria's best result for fourteen years, Poland's seventh place was their best in nine, and Romania's tenth place was one place behind their best-ever. Belgium's second place was their first top-five finish in seventeen years, but Latvia's third-from-bottom finish was their worst result in four attempts; it was also the worst placing for a host country since 1992.