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 2003 The Eurovision Song Contest 2003 was the 48th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Riga, Latvia, following the country's victory at the with the song " I Wanna" by Marie N. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) a ...

with the song "Weil der Mensch zählt" written and performed by

Alf Poier Alf Poier (born 22 February 1967 in Judenburg, Styria) is an Austrian artist and stand-up comedian. Biography Born in Judenburg in Styria, he started doing cabaret in 1995 in Graz, and has won several prizes for his work, including the ...

. 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) organised the national final ''Song.Null.Drei'' in order to select the Austrian entry for the 2003 contest in

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

, Latvia. Ten songs competed in a televised show where a public vote split between male and female voters exclusively selected "Weil der Mensch zählt" performed by Alf Poier as the winner. Austria competed in the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 24 May 2003. Performing during the show in position 2, Austria placed sixth out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 101 points.

Background

Prior to the 2003 contest, Austria has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-nine 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 2003 Eurovision Song Contest on 27 November 2002. From 1995 to 2000, ORF has held an internal selection to choose the artist and song to represent Austria at the contest. For the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest, the broadcaster had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Austria. On 11 January 2003, the broadcaster announced that the Austrian entry for the 2003 contest would be selected through a national final.

Before Eurovision

Song.Null.Drei

''Song.Null.Drei'' (''Song.Zero.Three'') was the national final that selected Austria's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2003. The competition took place on 14 March 2003 at the ORF Center in

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, hosted by Gabriela Dorschner and

DJ Ötzi Gerhard "Gerry" Friedle (born 7 January 1971), better known by his stage name DJ Ötzi (), is an Austrian pop and Schlager singer. Successful mainly in German-speaking countries, he is best known in the English-speaking world for his 2000 single ...

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 812,000 viewers in Austria with a market share of 33%, while the second part was watched by 733,000 viewers in Austria with a market share of 40%.

Format

Ten songs competed in the competition where the winner was selected exclusively by public voting. Viewers were able to vote via telephone or SMS and the results were split between male and female voters, each of them which created an overall ranking from which points from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) were distributed. After the combination of both scores, the entry with the highest number of points was selected as the winner.

Competing entries

Ten artists were nominated by record companies and revealed on 25 February 2003. Among the competing artists were former Austrian Eurovision representatives

Petra Frey Petra Frey (born 27 June 1978, in Wattens), is an Austrian singer. She has released twelve studio albums and five compilation albums and participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Biography Frey released her debut album, ''Bloß Träume im Ko ...

who represented

Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994 Austria was represented by Petra Frey Petra Frey (born 27 June 1978, in Wattens), is an Austrian singer. She has released twelve studio albums and five compilation albums and participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Biography Frey releas ...

, and Stella Jones (as part of Substitute) who represented

Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995 Austria has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 54 times since its debut in . The country has won twice, in and , and such it holds the record for the longest gap between consecutive wins — 48 years. The contest is broadcast in Austri ...

Final

The televised final took place on 14 March 2003. Ten songs competed and public televoting split between male and female voters selected "Weil der Mensch zählt" performed by

as the winner.

At Eurovision

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

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 ...

contest competed in the final on 24 May 2003. On 29 November 2002, a special allocation draw was held which determined the running order and Austria was set to perform in position 2, following the entry from

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

and before the entry from

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. Austria finished in sixth place with 101 points. The show was broadcast in Austria on

with commentary 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 ...

. 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 Turkey in the contest.

References

External links

Austrian National Final page
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2003

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003

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 ...