Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004

Prior to the 2004 contest, (DR) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Denmark thirty-two times since its first entry in 1957. It had won the contest, to this point, on two occasions: in with the song "" performed by Grethe and Jørgen Ingmann, and in with the song "Fly on the Wings of Love" performed by Olsen Brothers. In , it finished in twenty-fourth (last) place with the song "Tell Me Who You Are" performed by Malene Mortensen. As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, DR organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. The broadcaster confirmed its intentions to participate at the 2004 contest on 27 August 2003. DR has selected all of its Eurovision entries through the national final . Along with its participation confirmation, the broadcaster announced that would be organised in order to select its entry for the 2004 contest. == Before Eurovision ==

was the 34th edition of , the music competition organised by DR to select its entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. The event was held on 7 February 2004 at the Atletion in Aarhus, hosted by Natasja Crone and Peter Mygind and televised on DR1. The national final was watched by 1.779 million viewers in Denmark. Competing entries DR opened a submission period between 1 October 2003 and 3 November 2003 for composers to submit their entries. All composers and lyricists were required to be Danish citizens or have Danish residency, while all songs were required to be performed in Danish. The broadcaster received 315 entries during the submission period. A seven-member selection committee selected ten songs from the entries submitted to the broadcaster, while the artists of the selected entries were chosen by DR in consultation with their composers. The competing songs were announced on 22 December 2003 with their artists being announced on 8 January 2004. Among the artists was Helge Engelbrecht (member of Neighbours) who represented as part of Bandjo. Final The final took place on 7 February 2004 where the winner was determined over two rounds of public voting. In the first round of voting the top five advanced to the superfinal. In the superfinal, the winner, "" performed by Tomas Thordarson, was selected. Viewers were able to vote via telephone or SMS and the telephone voting results of each of Denmark's four regions as well as the SMS voting results in the superfinal were converted to points which were each distributed as follows: 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points. ==At Eurovision==

It was announced that the competition's format would be expanded to include a semi-final in 2004. According to the rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country, the "Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the ten highest placed finishers in the are required to qualify from the semi-final on 12 May 2004 in order to compete for the final on 15 May 2004; the top ten countries from the semi-final progress to the final. On 23 March 2004, an allocation draw was held which determined the running order for the semi-final and Denmark was set to perform in position 19, following the entry from and before the entry from . Tomas Thordarson performed the English version of "" at the contest, titled "Shame on You". At the end of the semi-final, Denmark was not announced among the top 10 entries and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Denmark placed thirteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 56 points. The semi-final and final were broadcast on DR1 with commentary by Jørgen de Mylius. DR appointed Camilla Ottesen as its spokesperson to announce the Danish votes during the final. Voting Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Denmark and awarded by Denmark in the semi-final and grand final of the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to in the semi-final and to in the final of the contest. Following the release of the televoting figures by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that a total of 194,796 televotes were cast in Denmark during the two shows: 58,027 votes during the semi-final and 136,769 votes during the final. Points awarded to Denmark Points awarded by Denmark ==References==