The New Eurovision Song Contest 09

The New Eurovision Song Contest 09 was the ninth edition of The New Eurovision Song Contest. It was held in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is the first time the contest will take place in Greece after Steve Angello ft. Mako won the eight edition with their song "Children Of The Wild".

67 countries participated in this edition, including Argentina, the Philippines and Japan announcing their debut in the contest.

Ireland was the winner of the edition with the song "Follow Your Fire" performed by Kodaline which scored 195 points, just only 5 points ahead the runner-up South Korea. This is the first time that the country wins the contest. Switzerland finished in third place. Malta, Cyprus and Albania were on fourth, fifth and sixth places.

Bidding phase and host city selection
On the day of the final of the eighth edition, it was reported that Greek broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) would accept the challenge of organising the ninth edition in case of a victory. Following Greece's triumph, the TNEBU's Executive Supervisor for the Eurovision Song Contest, Jerry ESC, issued the hosting invitation to ERT during the winner's press conference. The following day, the chairman of ERT, Christos Leontes, confirmed that the broadcaster would organise the ninth edition of the contest. It would be likely that the contest will be held in Athens, but in the winner's press conference, the Head of Delegation of Greece urged ERT to host the contest in Thessaloniki due to it being a more suitable venue for hosting.

The basic requirements to select a host city were set out in a document presented by the TNEBU to ERT following their win in Tehran:
 * A suitable venue that can accommodate around 10,000 spectators.
 * An international press centre for 1,500 journalists with adequate facilities for all the delegates.
 * A good distribution of hotel rooms, at different price categories, able to accommodate at least 2,000 delegates, accredited journalists and spectators.
 * An efficient transport infrastructure, including a nearby international airport with readily available connections with the city, venue, and hotels.

Besides Athens, other cities signalled their interest in bidding to host the ninth edition: Piraeus, Thessaloniki and Heraklion.

ERT representatives met with the The New Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group at the TNEBU headquarters in Geneva. During the meeting, ERT officials attended a workshop covering several topics related with hosting the Eurovision Song Contest and learned from the experience of the Iranian broadcaster IRIB. They also had the opportunity to present their first plans for the ninth edition, including multiple proposals for the host city and venue.

On 5 July 2018, the TNEBU and ERT announced that Thessaloniki had been selected as the host city, overcoming confirmed bids from Athens, Piraeus and Heraklion. In addition, ERT indicated Kaftanzoglio Stadium as the site for the shows.

Host Venue
Kaftanzoglio Stadium is a sports stadium in Thessaloniki, Greece. The stadium was built with money donated by the Kaftanzoglou Foundation, hence its name. At the time of its opening on 27 October 1960, the stadium was one of the highest quality stadiums in the Balkans. It currently has 27,770 seats, owing to a comprehensive renovation before reopening to host football matches for the 2004 Summer Olympics, which was centred in Athens. It was the largest stadium in Greece until 1982, but has since been surpassed in capacity by the Olympic Stadium in Athens.

It is the home football stadium of Iraklis Thessaloniki F.C. since 1960.

On 15 October 1969, the attendance record was set with 47,458 fans present for a FIFA World Cup qualifying match, witnessing Greece defeat Switzerland by a 4–1 score. In 1973 it hosted the European Cup Winners Cup Final, which resulted in a 1–0 victory for A.C. Milan over Leeds United.

The stadium regularly plays host to athletics events; it features the European Athletics Association event "Olympic Meeting Thessaloniki" every year; it hosted the Greek national championships in 2009, and it has been used for both athletics at the Mediterranean Games and the European Cup in athletics. It was the host stadium for the 2009 IAAF World Athletics Final.

Location
Thessaloniki, also familiarly known as Thessalonica, Salonica, or Salonika is the second-largest city in Greece, with over 1 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of Greek Macedonia, the administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace. Its nickname is η Συμπρωτεύουσα (Symprotévousa), literally "the co-capital", a reference to its historical status as the Συμβασιλεύουσα (Symvasilévousa) or "co-reigning" city of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, alongside Constantinople.

The original name of the city was Θεσσαλονίκη Thessaloníkē. It was named after princess Thessalonike of Macedon, the half sister of Alexander the Great, whose name means "Thessalian victory", from Θεσσαλός 'Thessalos', and Νίκη 'victory' (Nike), honoring the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Crocus Field (353/352 BCE).

Minor variants are also found, including Θετταλονίκη Thettaloníkē, Θεσσαλονίκεια Thessaloníkeia, Θεσσαλονείκη Thessaloneíkē, and Θεσσαλονικέων Thessalonikéōn.

The name Σαλονίκη Saloníkē is first attested in Greek in the Chronicle of the Morea, and is common in folk songs, but it must have originated earlier, as al-Idrisi called it Salunik already in the 12th century. It is the basis for the city's name in other languages: Солѹнь (Solun) in Old Church Slavonic, סלוניקי (Saloniki) in Ladino, Selânik سلانیك in Ottoman Turkish and Selanik in modern Turkish, Solun or Солун in the local and neighboring South Slavic languages, Салоники (Saloníki) in Russian, and Sãrunã in Aromanian, and Salonica or Salonika in English.

Thessaloniki was revived as the city's official name in 1912, when it joined the Kingdom of Greece during the Balkan Wars.

In local speech, the city's name is typically pronounced with a dark and deep L characteristic of Modern Macedonian accent.

Semi-final 1

 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.

Semi-final 2

 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.

Semi-final 3

 * The ten countries in this semi-final with the highest scoring points, according to the votes from each voting country will qualify for the Grand Final.

Grand Final

 * Thirty-one countries participated in the final, with all countries participating in the contest eligible to vote.
 * Non-qualifying countries will be counted as televoting.

Scoreboard
Semi-final 1

Semi-final 2

Semi-final 3

Grand Final

Azerbaijani entry
After the Grand Final, the Azerbaijani entrant Roya was detected to be not native to Azerbaijan. Roya's true origin is British-Iranian. Due the late discovery, the entry was not disqualified. As punishment İTV had to pay an unknown sum of money to the TNEBU.

Other Countries

 * Egypt - On 27 June 2018, Egyptian broadcaster ERTU confirmed that Egypt would not participate in the ninth edition.
 * Faroe Islands - On 29 June 2018, Kringvarp Føroya (KVF) expressed their interest in debuting in the contest, but KVF cannot obtain TNEBU membership due to the islands being a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark as determined by the unity of the Realm, so it is unlikely that the islands will debut in the near future.
 * Lebanon - On 25 June 2018, Télé Liban announced that they were currently in the process of applying for TNEBU membership. However, Lebanon wasn't in the final list of participants.
 * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Flag_of_Jamaica.svg/23px-Flag_of_Jamaica.svg.png Jamaica - Television Jamaica (TVJ) news anchor Dara Smith called for Jamaican participation in the contest via social media, saying that it could "broaden people's view towards Jamaican music" and "raise the international status of Jamaica". In response to Smith's statement, TVJ General Manager Claire Grant stated that they have no interest in participating in the contest.
 * Tunisia - On 5 July 2018, Tunisian broadcaster ERTT confirmed that Tunisia would not participate in the ninth edition and had no interest in returning to the contest.