The Big Four

Big FourFour countries always qualify for the Eurovision final regardless of their position in previous contests. Due to such status, these countries became known as the “Big Four“. These countries are France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The “untouchable” status was given to them in 2000 because they are the biggest financial contributors to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union). So, basically, they pay to participate which gets them around the semi-finals.

One of the big Eurovision stories in 2005 was ‘Big Four, Bottom Four’ because none of them finished among the top ten. Germany was 24th, France 23rd, United Kingdom 22nd and Spain 21st. Things didn’t get much better in 2006 and 2007 either.

Germany placed 15th in 2006 and 19th in 2007 and their highest ranking was in 2004 (8th place) with Max – Can’t Wait Until Tonight.
France was 22nd in 2006 and 2007 and their best score in the past five years was in 2004 when they placed 15th with Jonatan Cerrada – À Chaque Pas.
United Kingdom is even worse with 19th place in 2006 and 23rd in 2007, and their best result in the past years being in 2004 when they placed 16th with James Fox – Hold on to Our Love.
Spain‘s best ranking was in 2003 when they were 10th with Beth – Dime. They placed 21st and 20th in 2006 and 2007 respectively.

What will happen this year? So far, Spain is leading in our big poll with 13% of all the votes, while Germany, France and UK got only 1%.

The new semi-final format introduced this year has raised the question of their voting in the semis. Eventually, it was decided that two of the Big Four countries will have voting rights in the first semi-final and the rest in the second semi-final.

In this video you can see how France, Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom voted in the past two contests, Eurovision 2006 and Eurovision 2007

5 thoughts on “The Big Four

  1. To Be Fair. Im From The UK And We Havent Got And Surrounding Countries Unlike Turkey Or Greece. And Its All Political Voting Anyway.

  2. I quite like France’s entry this year, and Spain’s is a bit of a laugh, but really, there is no way any of these countries would get through by themselves, in my opinion.

  3. The thing is, the UK has plenty of song writing talent, but we always choose bad songs for our song-selection. Also, Europe doesnt like us much, and we’re not surrounded by loads of countries like they are in eastern Europe.

  4. In spite of the fact that the UK usually gets the lower places last years I find rather interesting some there performances. This year I like only german No angels.

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