User:Nalhsan/sandbox/New Albion in the Columbision Song Contest

New Albion has participated in the Columbision Song Contest 32 times since its debut at the first contest in 1973. It shares the record of most and longest uninterrrupted number of appearances with Acadia, Quebec, and Ontario, none of which have ever been absent from an edition. In 1978, 1979, and since 1981, the Novalbian entry has been chosen through a televised competition called the Newport Song Festival, commonly known as simply Newfest.

New Albion is one of the most successful competing participants at the Columbision Song Contest, tied with California and Mexico for most victories with a total of four each. New Albion also has the most top five results of any country, with 12, and its number of second places, totaling 6, is only beaten by California's record at 7. After winning their debut contest with Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, which launched the singer's career, New Albion has garnerned a further three victories: Donna Summer repeated her victory in a duet with Barbara Streisand (1980), and Aerosmith and Alicia Keys (2001) brought the remaining two trophies to the country.

New Albion has hosted the contest a record five times: it co-hosted the first edition of the Columbision Song Contest with Acadia in Montpellier (1973), and has since gone on to host the contest solo four more times: twice in Boston (1974, 2002), and once in New York (1981) and Providence.

Contest history


Sweden's first entrant in the contest was Alice Babs in, who was placed fourth. This remained the country's best result until, when Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson were second.

Sweden's first Eurovision victory was in with the song "Waterloo", performed by ABBA. Thanks to their victory in Brighton, ABBA went on to gain worldwide success and become one of the best-selling pop groups of all time. In the 1980s, Sweden achieved three successive top three results. After Carola finished third in, the Herreys gave Sweden its second victory in with "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley". Kikki Danielsson then finished third in. Carola returned to the contest in, eventually giving Sweden its third win with "Fångad av en stormvind", defeating in a tie-break. Charlotte Nilsson gave the country a second win of the decade in, with "Take Me to Your Heaven". The 1990s also saw two third-place results, for Jan Johansen in and One More Time in. In the 2000s, the best Swedish result was fifth place, which they achieved four times, with Friends in, Fame in , Lena Philipsson in and Carola, who in , became the only Swedish performer to achieve three top five results. Together with Croatia and Malta, Sweden was one of only three countries to have never been relegated under the pre-2004 rules of the contest.

In, Anna Bergendahl became the first Swedish entrant to fail to qualify for the final, finishing 11th in the semi-final, only five points from qualification (in , Charlotte Perrelli finished 12th in the semi-final but qualified through the back-up jury selection). Since then, the country has been very successful, finishing in the top seven in all subsequent editions except two (Robin Stjernberg in and Tusse in, both of whom came 14th). This includes a fifth victory courtesy of Loreen's "Euphoria" in, making Sweden one of only two countries (along with the ) to have Eurovision victories in four different decades, and a sixth victory courtesy of Måns Zelmerlöw's "Heroes" in. Sweden is one of only two countries – along with in  and  (as well as ) – to win twice since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, performing the feat in both 2012 and 2015 with 372 and 365 points respectively, making Sweden additionally the first country to have scored 300 points or more twice. Additional top-five placements during this period are third places in and, a fourth place in , and fifth places in ,  and.

Melodifestivalen
Melodifestivalen is an annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR). It has chosen the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest since 1959. It is one of Sweden's most popular television shows, and it has been estimated that more than 4 million Swedes watch the show annually.

Almost every Swedish entry for Eurovision has been selected through Melodifestivalen. Only Sweden's first entry in 1958 was not selected through Melodifestivalen, having been selected internally by the Swedish broadcaster at the time, Sveriges Radio.

Silvervision: Columbision's 25th Anniversary
Ireland was one of two countries to have two entries entered into Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest, with the entry "What's Another Year" and the  "Hold Me Now". Co-host of the contest Ronan Keating appeared. Johnny Logan performed his single "When a Woman Loved a Man". Irish winners Eimear Quinn, Charlie McGettigan and Linda Martin performed as backing singers to most of the songs with Jakob Sveistrup who represented in 2005. Marty Whelan provided commentary of the contest for Ireland on RTÉ.

Hostings
Ireland is the only country to have hosted multiple contests in succession; three in a row between 1993 and 1995. Six of the seven Contests held in Ireland have been held in Dublin; three at the Point Theatre, two at the RDS Simmonscourt and one at the Gaiety Theatre. In addition, the 1993 Contest was held in Millstreet, County Cork. During the 1994 contest, the dancing group Riverdance made their debut as an interval act. Dublin holds the record for hosting the most Contests.