Bundesvision Song Contest 2005

The Bundesvision Song Contest 2005 was the first edition of the annual Bundesvision Song Contest musical event. The contest was held on 12 February 2005 at the König Pilsener Arena in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The contest was hosted by Stefan Raab, Annette Frier, and Oliver Pocher in the green room. It was the first Germany-wide music competition in this format.

Origins
The concept of the Bundesvision Song Contest was first introduced during episode 657 of the late-night television comedy talk show TV total by presenter Stefan Raab on 20 December 2004. The structure of the Bundesvision Song Contest is very similar to that of the Eurovision Song Contest, held among European countries; the Bundesvision Song Contest uses the sixteen states of Germany, only songs with (at least partially) German-speaking text were allowed, Stefan Raab also announced that the winning state would host the Bundesvision Song Contest 2006.

From 17 January 2005, the participants and their states were presented on TV total, for four weeks a themed evening was organised for each artist, in addition to a discussion with Raab about the chosen song.

Because suitable representatives were not found for all states, some artists represented states, to which they had no or only a very indirect tie, earning some criticism of the contest, for example, Cologne based band Klee representing Saarland, and not North Rhine-Westphalia.

Contest overview
The winner of the Bundesvision Song Contest 2005 was alternative pop band Juli with the song "Geile Zeit", representing Hessen. In second place were Fettes Brot representing Schleswig-Holstein, and third place to Sido with representing Berlin.

14 of the 16 states awarded themselves the maximum of 12 points, with North Rhine-Westphalia, and Rhineland-Palatinate, awarding themselves 10 points each.

The contest was broadcast by ProSieben and watched by 3.23 million people (11% market share). In the 14-49 age range 2.55 million people watched the contest (21.2% market share).

Spokespersons

 * North Rhine-Westphalia – Tobias Häusler
 * Hamburg – Matthias Lorenz-Meyer & Beata Arnold
 * Rhineland-Palatinate – Carmen Christin Burger
 * Bremen – Bella Lesnik
 * Bavaria – Holger Barnsteiner
 * Brandenburg – Marcus Kaiser
 * Schleswig-Holstein – Kaya Laß
 * Saarland – Martina Straten
 * Saxony – Peter Imhof
 * Baden-Württemberg – Hans Blomberg
 * Sachsen-Anhalt – Thomas Schminke
 * Hesse – Johannes Scherer
 * Thuringia – Anne Voigt
 * Berlin – Boussa Thiam
 * Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – Jens Herrmann
 * Lower Saxony – Frank Schambor