Austria was represented by Global Kryner with the song "Y así" in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005, held in Kyiv, Ukraine. "Y así" is an Austrian folk tune with yodeling, sung in English and Spanish. The song was written by Christof Spörk and composed by Christof Spörk and Edi Köhldorfer.
Song.Null.Fünf was the national final that selected Austria's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. The competition took place on 25 February 2005 at the ORF Center in Vienna, hosted by Mirjam Weichselbraun and Christian Clerici and broadcast on ORF 1.[1]
Format[]
Five artists with two candidate songs each competed in the competition where the winner was selected by regional televoting and mobile phone voting. Viewers were able to vote via telephone or SMS and the telephone voting results of each of the nine Austrian federal states via landline created an overall ranking from which points from 1-8, 10 and 12 were distributed. The tenth set of votes were the mobile voting results via telephone and SMS of which the overall ranking of the entries was also assigned scores from 1-8, 10 and 12.[2] After the combination of all scores, the entry with the highest number of points was selected as the winner.
Competing entries[]
ORF invited all interested artists that had a valid contract with a record company to each submit two entries to the broadcaster between 17 September 2004 and 30 September 2004.[3] An additional submission period was open for interested artists without a valid contract with a record company between 4 November 2004 and 25 November 2004.[4] All submissions were reviewed by a team of music professionals who nominated five artists. The five artists selected to compete in the national final were revealed on 5 January 2005 and among the competing artists, Alf Poier previously represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003.[5]
The televised final took place on 25 February 2005. Five artists competed with two candidate songs each where regional televoting and mobile voting selected "Y así" performed by Global Kryner as the winner.
The national final was very controversial for being unfair due to the voting system which was amended shortly before the final. When the results were eventually published, only 20% of the 337,179 votes registered during the final were submitted via landline for the regional voting with the remaining 80% being submitted via mobiles and SMS, which had more voters than any federal state but distributed just as many points as each state did. The overall votes also revealed that "Good Old Europe Is Dying" performed by Alf Poier, which placed second, received 45,000 votes more than the eventual winners Global Kryner.[6] Poier's manager René Berto later stated: "We prefer to be the moral winner rather than winning a cheap victory. Global Kryner did not win because of the fans, but because of ORF's last-minute change of the voting system."[2]
At Eurovision[]
Because Austria placed 21st at the 2004 contest, Global Kryner were forced to compete in the Eurovision semi-final. They performed first preceding Lithuania and came 21st with 30 points.[7]
The spokesperson who revealed Austria's votes for other countries was Dodo Roscic, an ORF host who had been the Austrian spokesperson since the 1999 contest.[8]
Austria
Slovenia
Andorra
Switzerland
Albania
