Eurovision this decade: the presenters

15 November 2019 at 16:00 CET

The hosts of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest; Timur Miroshnychenko, Oleksandr Skichko and Volodymyr Ostapchuk. Andres Putting

We are reaching the end of another decade and so it is time to look back at what the Eurovision Song Contest brought us over the last 10 years. We have seen 10 different stages, 10 different themes, 10 Host Cities and 30 presenters. This week, we will look back at the standout presenters of the world's biggest live music event.

The Eurovision decade started in Oslo, where three presenters hosted the Contest. Erik Solbakken, Haddy Jatou N'jie and Nadia Hasnaoui combined fun with class and danced along with Madcon’s flashmob:

Some presenters of the past decade also participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. Stefan Raab, who represented Germany before in 2010, performed Lena’s winning song as the opening of Eurovision 2011.

Some other memorable performances by the presenters include Petra Mede's Smörgåsbord, the 12 points song from the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, and of course Love Love Peace Peace:

Hosting experiences

In Kyiv in 2017, we saw an all-male set of presenters hosting the show: Oleksandr Skichko, Volodymyr Ostapchuk, and Timur Miroshnychenko. Oleksandr and Volodymyr hosted the show from the stage and Timur from the greenroom. What did hosting the Eurovision Song Contest mean for him? "It was my dream for 12 years, from the moment I commentated for the Contest for the first time. That dream came true! It was better than I expected. The whole year I was trying to imagine how it would be. Since Jamala's win, I understood that I had a plan and goal for next year and I did everything to reach it. But nobody could imagine the powerful energy that you feel when standing on that stage."

The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 Andres Putting

Hosting the Eurovision Song Contest isn't easy: three live shows, multiple languages and over 40 participants in front of an audience of more than 200 million people. "We worked without prompters and of course wanted to host without even reading from our cards. Every show had a script of around 30 to 50 pages. We had to learn all lines by heart. It is a huge amount of information, and I am only talking about the script of the Grand Final now. Don’t forget about the two Semi-Finals, that had the same situation," says Timur.

The year after in Lisbon, it was time for an all-female set of presenters. Filomena Cautela, Sílvia Alberto, Daniela Ruah and Catarina Furtado shared their hosting duties during at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018:

The 4 Eurovision 2018 presenters Andres Putting

Filomena Cautela says hosting the Eurovision Song Contest was bigger than she could have ever expected: "It was more chaotic than I could ever imagine, even though it was very organized chaos. It was crazier than I could ever expect, but frankly, I was so submerged in the work that only weeks after it happened, with all the media attention from all around the world did it sink in, so yeah it exceeded all my expectations."

Hosting the biggest television show in the world is not only a very intense job, it is meaningful as well, Filomena says: "Yes, It meant I had the opportunity to be a part of the biggest television event in the world but more importantly: the event that promotes freedom, love, peace, respect, being true to yourself, and even that music can overtake all the differences whether they are religion, language, culture... anything. We all feel emotions, and at the end of the day, that is Eurovision for me."

2019 saw a diverse group of four presenters guiding some 200 million viewers through the 64th Eurovision Song Contest. There, Bar Refaeli, Erez Tal, Assi Azar and Lucy Ayoub had the honour of taking to the stage.

The presenters of Eurovision 2019: Assi Azar, Bar Refaeli, Lucy Ayoub and Erez Tal. Thomas Hanses

Assi was very flattered that he was asked to host the contest: "To be watched by people all over Europe and even the world was a very interesting experience. The fact that the mother of my husband, who lives in Spain, was watching me on her tv was a new thing for me. I felt really honoured to represent my country and Eurovision. It was a dream coming true."

Rehearsing takes up a lot of time, as Timur said. Assi had the same experience: "Most of our rehearsing time went to announcing the results. This year, the Eurovision Song Contest changed the way they announce the results, so we had to do a few tests. When you do the rehearsals of the results, you have to do it like it is live. So sometimes, they try to test you with obstacles, things that could go wrong. Those rehearsals were very long, but it was important to do. When the live shows came, it went perfectly."