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Host country: Finland
Venue: Hartwall Areena, Helsinki
Dates: 10 May 2007 (Semi Final), 12 May 2007 (Grand Final)
Presenters: Jaana Pelkonen, Mikko Leppilampi
Won by: Serbia

It has quickly become a rule at Eurovision that whatever type of music wins the contest one year becomes the dominant musical style the following year. So it was inevitable that following Lordi's win in 2006 for Finland with 'Hard Rock Hallelujah', the 2007 show would have its fair share of Def Leppard, McFly and T-Rex wannabes. And yet all of the rock-based entries that took part in Thursday's semi-final failed to make Saturday's Grand Final, while those that were straight through to the final failed to impress Europe's voting public either.

There were other musical styles that one would not normally associate with the contest, albeit appearing in diluted Eurovision form - Hungary collected plenty of votes for its 'Unsubstantial Blues'; not proving so popular were the Krazy Mess Groovers who brought us some Belgian jazz-funk, Roger Cicero's swing from Germany, and Dervish's traditional Celtic folk from Ireland, the latter which helped Eurovision's most successful ever country sink right to the bottom of the scoreboard for the first time.

The UK, as I predicted two months earlier, flopped badly, with Scooch's tacky pop finishing second bottom, having only Ireland and Malta to thank for any votes. At the other end of the scoreboard, however, it was all change from the last few years. For once 'song' triumphed over 'show', with Serbia's Marija Serifovic (below) singing the first ballad to win the contest for many years; not only that, but also the first winning song not sung in English since the free language rule was introduced. Thankfully beaten into second place was the cross-dressing Ukrainian comedian Verka Serduchka (the other cross-dresser in the contest, Denmark's DQ, failed to even make the final).

The most commonly phrase about Eurovision these days is 'it's all political'. And it's difficult to argue with this when you look at the results of this year's contest. Eurovision 2007 was the most eastern-dominated yet, with only 8 out of the 24 competitors in the Grand Final hailing from the western side of Europe. There was booing from the audience in the Hartwall Areena at the close of Thursday's semi-final (which contained 28 entries - the greatest number yet seen at a Eurovision contest) as Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands, Malta and Austria all found themselves knocked out in favour of the ever-increasing number of countries from the former Communist Bloc.

Then in the final, of the 'traditional' Eurovision countries, only Greece and Turkey could manage a placing in the top half of the table. We now faced the very real possibility that, other than the 'Big Four' of UK, France, Germany and Spain, the 2008 final could bave been made up entirely of entries from the Eastern side of Europe. Eurovision has gone East - and the West are going to find it very difficult to get it back again.

Click here to view the 2007 scoreboard (opens in new window)

Countries voting are shown across the top, with each country's cumulative total after the country has voted shown in large type, and the points awarded in small type. Each country gave 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points to its top ten songs
BBC broadcast: Saturday 12 May 2007, 8.00-11.12pm. Commentary: BBC1 - Terry Wogan, Radio 2 - Ken Bruce. UK vote spokesperson: Fearne Cotton

The following countries had to enter the qualifying round in order to stand a chance of participating in the Grand Final. Those highlighted in light blue progressed to the Grand Final; however the scores and placings were not revealed until after the contest.

Click here to view the 2007 semi-final scoreboard (opens in new window)

Although the voting was not televised, this scoreboard shows the cumulative scores as well as the points awarded, as if the scoring had been announced in the traditional manner. Each country gave 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points to its top ten songs
BBC broadcast: Thursday 10 May 2007, 7.58-10.39pm. Commentary: BBC3 - Paddy O'Connell, Sarah Cawood

Monaco withdrew after three unsuccessful years, but with the return of Austria and Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro applying as separate entities, and new participants Czech Republic and Georgia, there were as many as 42 broadcasters taking part altogether - which meant a semi-final consisting of no fewer than 28 entries!

Click below to see more images from both nights' contests:

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