Eurovision Dance Contest 2008

The SEC Centre is Scotland's largest exhibition centre, located in the district of Finnieston on the north bank of the River Clyde, Glasgow. The venue's holding company SEC Limited, is 91% owned by Glasgow City Council and 9% owned by private investors. It is probably best known for hosting concerts, particularly in Hall 4 and Hall 3.

Since the opening of the original buildings in 1985, the complex has undergone two major expansions; the first being the SEC Armadillo in 1997, and then the OVO Hydro arena in 2013.

The host city and venue was announced by the BBC on 7 July 2008.^[1] The contest was attended by an audience of 2,000.^[4]

According to the 2007 rules Section 2.2^[5] on the official website, all entrants in the Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 agreed to take part in 2008 when signing up for the first contest. However, in June 2008, Switzerland announced their withdrawal from the contest without specifying a reason,^[6] while Germany also decided to withdraw from the event later the same month, due to comparatively low ratings for the 2007 contest in the country.^[7]

The running order was announced on 8 August.^[8] Due to a scheduling clash with the 2010 FIFA World Cup preliminaries, the Spanish broadcaster announced its late withdrawal on 28 August, just days before the contest was scheduled to took place.^[9] In July, they held a national selection show Quiero Bailar and named singer Rosa López and dancer Nieto as their representatives in the contest.^[10] According to the draw they were supposed to be 15th couple to perform.^[8]

As the number of dances was reduced, with each couple performing once instead of twice, new countries were allowed to enter the competition, but the only new country to enter the contest was Azerbaijan.^[3]

The opening of the show featured Red Hot Chilli Pipers playing a Scottish-flavoured medley of known songs, with all participating couples presented on stage in order of performance.^[11] The interval act featured a group dance routine and was followed by soprano Lesley Garrett and the Carousel cast, performing a medley of "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone" accompanied by the City of Glasgow Chorus.^[12]

Azerbaijan and Greece announced professional dance couples as their representatives at the Eurovision Dance Contest 2008. According to the regulations of the contest,^[5] professional couples were not allowed to take part in the competition. The EBU specified that the couple had to be composed of one professional (defined as a dancer who earns his or her living through dance and dance-related activities), and one non-professional known in a field other than dance. The non-professional was not required to be a celebrity, as long as he or she was known in his field, and it was also not a requirement that the non-professional had no dance experience.^[2] Since the representatives for Azerbaijan and Greece both consisted of two professional dancers, however, it is not clear why their entries were considered valid.

It is worth noting that, had the judges not been introduced (and thus only the televote been used), Poland would still have won the competition by 31 points. However, Ukraine and Russia would have shifted places therefore Ukraine would have finished 2nd and Russia finishing 3rd.

The maximum twelve points awarded by each country (to the couple who had received the most phone votes) were allocated as follows:

N.	Contestant	Nation(s) giving 12 points
5	Poland	Austria,  Denmark,  Ireland,  Netherlands,  United Kingdom
3	Russia	Finland,  Greece,  Ukraine
	Ukraine	Azerbaijan,  Portugal,  Russia
2	Azerbaijan	Lithuania,  Poland
1	Finland	Sweden

An expert jury of International DanceSport Federation judges from non-participating countries acted as a jury in the contest. After each performance, each jury member awarded each performance up to 12 points. The jury members were:^[15]

• Juror A:  Singapore – Gladys Tay (head judge)
• Juror B:  Germany – Sven Traut
• Juror C:  Slovenia – Barbara Nagode Ambrož
• Juror D:  France – Michelle Ribas

The points below were converted (giving the jury vote the weight of four countries' votes in the total result) into 4 sets of 12 points, 12 for the first place couple on the jury leaderboard, 10 points for second, 8 points for third and so on, down to 1 point for 10th. The other four couples, do not receive any points from the judges.^[16]

Detailed jury votes^[17]

Draw	Song	Jurors				Total
		Juror A	Juror B	Juror C	Juror D
1	Sweden	8	8	8	7	31
2	Austria	7	7	7	7	28
3	Denmark	12	12	12	12	48
4	Azerbaijan	12	10	10	10	42
5	Ireland	7	7	8	7	29
6	Finland	10	8	8	8	34
7	Netherlands	8	7	7	6	28
8	Lithuania	12	10	10	10	42
9	United Kingdom	8	10	8	8	34
10	Russia	10	12	10	10	42
11	Greece	10	12	12	10	44
12	Portugal	8	7	8	7	30
13	Poland	10	10	12	8	40
14	Ukraine	10	10	10	8	38

The order in which each country announced their votes was done in order of performance. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.^[18]

Most countries sent commentators to Glasgow or commentated from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, provide voting information.^[18]

Among the countries that took part, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Macedonia, Iceland, Israel, Malta and Spain also broadcast the event without sending representatives.^[19] In accordance with the rules, Spanish broadcaster TVE were obliged to broadcast the contest live due to their late withdrawal as an active participant.^[20] The EBU initially confirmed that the event would be broadcast on the network's second channel La 2 "for the benefit of Spanish viewers",^[21] however TVE later confirmed it would be delayed by one hour without specifying a reason.^[22] Australia also broadcast the contest on 6 May 2009, as a lead up to the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, on SBS.^[23] This was the first time Australia had broadcast the Eurovision Dance Contest, after failing to broadcast the 2007 edition, and was aired without any commentary.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Austria	ORF 2	Andi Knoll and Nicole Burns-Hansen	[24]
Azerbaijan	Ictimai TV	Leyla Aliyeva and Murad Ragimov	[18][25][better source needed]
Denmark	DR1	Sisse Fisker and Claus Larsen	[26]
Finland	Yle TV2	Sirpa Suutari-Jääskö and Johanna Pirttilahti	[27]
Greece	NET, ERT World	Maria Kozakou and Voula Santorineou	[18]
Ireland	RTÉ One	Marty Whelan and Brian Redmond	[18]
Lithuania	LRT	Asta Einikytė and Virginijus Visockas	[28]
Netherlands	Nederland 1	Lucille Werner and Cor van de Stroet	[29]
Poland	TVP2	Artur Orzech and Zbigniew Zasada	[30][31]
Portugal	RTP1, RTP Internacional, RTP África	Isabel Angelino and Alberto Rodrigues	[18]
Russia	Channel One	Yana Churikova and Stanislav Popov	[18]
Sweden	TV4	David Hellenius and Tony Irving	[32]
Ukraine	Pershyi Natsionalnyi	Timur Miroshnychenko and Miroslav Keba	[18]
United Kingdom	BBC One	Len Goodman and Craig Revel Horwood	[33]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Albania	RTSH	Leon Menkshi
Armenia	ARMTV	Felix Khacatryan and Hrachuhi Utmazyan
Australia	SBS (broadcast on 6 May 2009)	No commentary	[34]
Belarus	Belarus-1	Denis Kurian and Tatiana Bondarchuck
Bosnia and Herzegovina	BHT 1 (delayed)	Dejan Kukrić
Cyprus	RIK 1, RIK Sat	Melina Karageorgiou
Iceland	RÚV (delayed)	Eva María Jónsdótttir	[35]
Israel	Channel 1 (delayed)	No commentary
Macedonia	MKRTV	Milanka Rašić
Malta	TVM	Eileen Montesin
Spain	La 2, TVE Internacional (delayed)	Sandra Daviú	[36]

Estimated viewership by country (in millions)

Country	Viewership	Ref(s)
Austria	0.49	[37]
Poland	4.3	[37]
Portugal	0.87	[37]
United Kingdom	4.7	[37][38]

• Eurovision Song Contest 2008
• Eurovision Young Musicians 2008
• Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008

• Official website
• ESCKaz