Which presenting duo are your favourites from the noughties?

04 November 2016 at 13:00 CET
Last week Sir Terry Wogan and Ulrika Jonsson were voted the most popular presenters of the Eurovision Song Contest from the 1990s. Now it's time to turn our attention to the next decade - the noughties! The 2000s marked a new era in the Eurovision Song Contest and saw the introduction of semi-finals as well as a string of countries winning for the very first time.

The very first Eurovision Song contest of the new millennium took place in Stockholm in May 2000. Swedish broadcaster SVT staged the competition in the Globen Arena, which at the time was the largest venue ever used for the Eurovision Song Contest with 13,000 people in the audience. The following year the Danes went one better and hosted the contest in Copenhagen's Parken Stadium in front of a crowd of 35,000! It remains the biggest live audience for the Eurovision Song Contest to date.

The presenters in 2001, Natasja Crone & Søren Pilmark, spoke almost entirely in rhyming couplets much to the annoyance of UK commentator Terry Wogan who dubbed the duo "Dr Death and the Tooth Fairy". Wogan later apologised to host broadcaster DR for what he considered to be "gentle comments about the hosts". 2001 is also noteworthy since it was the first time since 1989 that a country scored its first victory. Subsequent winners from 1990-2000 were all countries that had won the contest before.

 

Estonia's win in 2001 marked a string of victories for both new-entrant countries such as Latvia and Ukraine, and long-standing participants, such as Greece and Turkey, that had yet to triumph in the competition. Between 2000 and 2009 the contest was staged in a different country every single year - the first time this has happened since the contest began in the 1950s. Every contest in the 2000s followed the same format; a male/female pairing. The decade also saw the rise of the musical Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision which parodied the distinctive presenting styles of many of the hosts from this time.

In 2009 the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Moscow, host broadcaster Channel One Russia opted for different presenters for the Semi-Finals and Grand Final. Model Natalia Vodianova hosted the two Semi-Finals alongside TV personality Andrey Malakhov. Alsou, who finished second for Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000, presented the Grand Final with Ivan Urgant. Both sets of presenters are included in our competition. 

May we have your votes please?

We would like to find out who is your favourite presenter of the 2000s. All you need to do is leave the name of the presenter of your choice in the comments below. The winner will be determined by the amount of votes received on both the website and on the official Eurovision Song Contest Facebook account. We will reveal the winner in a special video featuring the highlights of the most popular presenters.

YearHost CountryName of the presenter(s)2000SwedenKattis Ahlström & Anders Lundin2001DenmarkNatasja Crone & Søren Pilmark2002EstoniaAnnely Peebo & Marko Matvere2003LatviaMarie N. & Renars Kaupers2004TurkeyMeltem Cumbul & Korhan Abay2005UkraineMaria Efrosinina & Pavlo Shylko2006GreeceMaria Menounos & Sakis Rouvas2007FinlandJaana Pelkonen & Mikko Leppilampi2008SerbiaJovana Janković & Željko Joksimović

2009

Russia

Natalia Vodianova & Andrey Malakhov (Semi-Finals)

Alsou & Ivan Urgant (Grand Final)

Who is your favourite presenter from the 2000s?