大象传媒

Coverage of the forty-eighth annual Eurovision Song Contest broadcast from Skonto Hall in Riga, Latvia.Turkey won for the first time with Sertab Erener's "Everyway That I Can". Only three points separated the top three.Twenty six countries took part, including Ukraine on their debut in the event. At the time this was the biggest turn out in the contest's history, and remains the biggest number of countries to compete in a final. A year later semi-finals were introduced, getting rid of the relegation rule, and this stretched the capacity of the competition further.It was the first year the United Kingdom experienced the humiliation of "null points" after act Jemini sang "Cry Baby".Other notable entrants included the favourites, Russian "lesbian" duo t.A.T.u, who attracted a lot of media attention and who had already had a hit in Europe, Austria's outspoken comic Alf Poier who performed surrounded by stuffed farmyard animals, and band Ich Troje who tried to represent two different countries with two different songs but failed after winning the national final in Poland but not in Germany.For the first time a made-up language was used at the contest by Belgium. The composer of their song "Sanomi" said it was a dance folk number sung in a universal language.Russia quibbled with the results after Turkey's win saying that Ireland's use of a jury instead of televoting because of a technical hitch had cost them the title. This was silenced after the results of the televote were published showing that the outcome would have been unchanged.