Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

participated in the

Eurovision Song Contest 2002 The Eurovision Song Contest 2002 was the 47th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Tallinn, Estonia, following the country's victory at the with the song "Everybody" by Tanel Padar, Dave Benton and 2XL. Organised by the Euro ...

with the song "Say a Word" written by Robert Pfluger and Alexander Kahr. The song was performed by Manuel Ortega. The Austrian broadcaster

Österreichischer Rundfunk ('Austrian Broadcasting Corporation'; ORF) is an Austrian national public broadcaster. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Aus ...

(ORF) returned to the Eurovision Song Contest after a one-year absence following their relegation from

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

as one of the bottom six countries in the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

contest. ORF organised the national final ''song://null.zwei'' in order to select the Austrian entry for the 2002 contest in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, Estonia. Ten songs competed in a televised show where an internet jury panel and a public vote selected "Say a Word" performed by Manuel Ortega as the winner. Austria competed in the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 25 May 2002. Performing during the show in position 3, Austria placed eighteenth out of the 24 participating countries, scoring 26 points.

Background

Prior to the 2002 contest, Austria has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-eight times since its first entry in . The nation has won the contest on one occasion: in with the song "" performed by

Udo Jürgens Udo Jürgens (born Jürgen Udo Bockelmann; 30 September 1934 – 21 December 2014) was an Austrian composer and singer of popular music whose career spanned over 50 years. He won the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 for Austria, composed close ...

. Austria's least successful result has been last place, which they have achieved on seven occasions, most recently in . Austria has also received ''

nul points The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. The most recent system was implemented in the , and sees each participating country award two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to their ten favourite songs: one set fr ...

'' on three occasions; in , and 1991. The Austrian national broadcaster,

(ORF), broadcasts the event within Austria and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ORF confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest on 1 June 2001. From 1995 to 2000, ORF has held an internal selection to choose the artist and song to represent Austria at the contest. Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster also announced that the Austrian entry for the 2002 contest would be selected through a national final. This method had last been used by ORF in 1994.

Before Eurovision

song://null.zwei

''song://null.zwei'' (''song://zero.two'') was the national final that selected Austria's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2002. The competition took place on 1 March 2002 at the ORF Center in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, hosted by

Andi Knoll Andreas "Andi" Knoll (born 11 June 1972 in Innsbruck) is an Austrian radio and television presenter. He is Austria's commentator at the Eurovision Song Contest each year. Eurovision Song Contest work Since the 1999 contest (with the except ...

and broadcast on

ORF eins ORF 1 (''ORF eins'') is an Austrian public television channel owned by ORF. It was the first television channel in Austria, started in 1955. ORF 1 is one of four public TV channels in Austria. It is funded by a mixture of advertising revenue an ...

. The first part of the national final was watched by 814,000 viewers in Austria with a market share of 31%, while the second part was watched by 913,000 viewers in Austria with a market share of 42%.

Format

Ten songs competed in the competition where the winner was selected by public voting and an internet jury panel consisting of 2,002 members selected via an online quiz. The jury results created an overall ranking from which points from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) were distributed to the top five entries. Viewers were able to vote via telephone or SMS, each of them which also created an overall ranking and assigned scores from 1 to 5. After the combination of all scores, the entry with the highest number of points was selected as the winner.

Competing entries

Six artists were nominated by record companies, while an additional four acts was chosen through an open submission. For the open submission, ORF invited all interested artists to submit their songs to the broadcaster between 28 August and 30 November 2001. The broadcaster received over 700 submissions at the close of the deadline, which were reviewed by a team of music professionals. The ten artists selected to compete in the national final were revealed on 28 January 2002 at an ORF press conference that was hosted by Andi Knoll.

Final

The televised final took place on 1 March 2002. Ten songs competed and the combination of votes from an internet jury panel and a public vote split between telephone and SMS voting selected "Say a Word" performed by Manuel Ortega as the winner.

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the bottom six countries in the

contest competed in the final. On 9 November 2001, a special allocation draw was held which determined the running order and Austria was set to perform in position 3, following the entry from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and before the entry from

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Austria finished in eighteenth place with 26 points. The show was broadcast in Austria on

with commentary by

and via radio on

FM4 FM4 is an Austrian national radio station operated by the ORF. Its main target is the youth audience, and much of the music output is characterised by an alternative rock and electronic music slant. Programmimg The programming of ''FM4'' is als ...

with commentary by Stermann and Grissemann. The Austrian spokesperson, who announced the Austrian votes during the final, was Dodo Roscic.

Voting

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Austria and awarded by Austria in the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to the United Kingdom in the contest.

References

External links

Austrian National Final page
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2002

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...