The Eurovision Song Contest 2005 was the 50th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It consisted of a semi-final on 19 May and a final on 21 May 2005, held at the Palace of Sports in Kyiv, Ukraine, and presented by Maria Efrosinina and Pavlo Shylko. It was organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU), who staged the event after winning the 2004 contest for Ukraine with the song "Wild Dances" by Ruslana.

Broadcasters from thirty-nine countries participated in the contest, three more than the previous record of thirty-six, that took part the year before. Bulgaria and Moldova made their first participation this year, while Hungary returned to the contest after a six-year absence, having last taken part in 1998.

The winner was Greece with the song "My Number One", performed by Helena Paparizou and written by Manos Psaltakis, Christos Dantis and Natalia Germanou. This was Greece's first victory in the contest after 31 years of participation. Malta, Romania, Israel, and Latvia rounded out the top five. Malta equalled their best result from 2002, while Romania achieved their best result in their Eurovision history. Unusually, all "Big Four" countries (France, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) ended up as the "Last Four", all placing in the bottom four positions in the final, while the host country itself, Ukraine, finished just above them.

Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper. The Palace of Sports, a multi-purpose indoor arena, was confirmed by officials as the host venue on 6 September 2004.^[1] However, in order to host the contest, the facilities had been brought up to the standard required by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

At the end of December 2004, work began on the renovation of the hall,^[2] for which approximately 4 million francs were allocated.^[3] Renovation works were to be finished by 20 April,^[4] however, they were completed at the beginning of May.^[5][6] The arena could accommodate over 5,000 seated spectators. Additionally 2,000 press delegates were catered for.

Hotel rooms were scarce as the contest organisers asked the Ukrainian government to put a block on bookings they did not control themselves through official delegation allocations or tour packages: this led to many people's hotel bookings being cancelled.^[7]

Organizers hoped that by hosting Eurovision, it would boost Ukraine's image abroad and increase tourism, while the country's new government hoped that it would also give a modest boost to the long-term goal of acquiring European Union membership.

Thirty-nine countries participated in the 2005 contest. Hungary returned to the contest after a six-year absence, last competing in 1998. Bulgaria and Moldova competed in the contest for the first time. Czech Republic and Lebanon were originally announced as participants, but the former withdrew before the deadline, and the latter withdrew in March 2005, two months before the contest.

Several of the performing artists had previously represented the same country in past editions: Constantinos Christoforou had represented Cyprus in 1996 as a solo artist and in 2002 as part of One; Helena Paparizou had represented Greece in 2001 as part of Antique; Selma had represented Iceland in 1999; and Chiara had represented Malta in 1998. In addition, Alexandros Panayi providing backing vocals for Greece, had represented Cyprus in 1995 as a solo artist and in 2000 as part of Voice [it]; Anabel Conde providing backing vocals for Andorra, had represented Spain in 1995; and Elina Konstantopoulou providing backing vocals for Cyprus, had represented Greece in 1995.

Czech broadcaster Czech Television initially applied to participate in the 2005 contest; however, it reconsidered débuting in the contest and later withdrew its application.^[11] Lebanese broadcaster Télé Liban initially confirmed its début in the contest and selected the song "Quand tout s'enfuit" performed by Aline Lahoud as its entry; however, the broadcaster announced its withdrawal from the competition in March 2005 after finding out the obligation to broadcast all participating entries, including the Israeli one, as well as enabling its viewers to vote for them; this contravened a Lebanese law prohibiting any acknowledgement of Israel.^[12]

The official logo of the contest remained the same from the 2004 contest with the country's flag in the heart being changed. Following Istanbul's 'Under the Same Sky', the slogan for the 2005 show was 'Awakening', which symbolised the awakening of the country and city ready to present itself to Europe. The postcards (short clips shown between performances) for the 2005 show illustrated Ukraine's culture and heritage along with a more modern and industrial side to the country.

This was the first edition to be broadcast in widescreen 16:9 format.^[13]

The hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv were television presenter Maria "Masha" Efrosinina and DJ Pavlo "Pasha" Shylko. Previous winner Ruslana returned to the stage in Kyiv to perform in the interval act and to interview the contestants backstage in the 'green room'. Ruslana was also intended to be a presenter for the show, but was pulled out before the contest for numerous reasons, including her poor English skills. The Ukrainian boxers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko opened the televoting, while a special trophy was presented to the winner by Ukraine's president, Viktor Yushchenko.

An official CD and DVD was released and a new introduction was an official pin set, which contains heart-shaped pins with the flags of all thirty-nine participating countries. The EBU also commissioned a book "The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History" by British/American author John Kennedy O'Connor to celebrate the contest's fiftieth anniversary.^[14] The book was presented on screen during the break between songs 12 and 13 (Serbia and Montenegro, Denmark). The book was published in English, German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Finnish.

The semi-final was held on 19 May 2005 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST). 25 countries performed and all 39 participants voted. The highlighted countries qualified for the final.

The finalists were:

• the four automatic qualifiers France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom;
• the top 10 countries from the 2004 final (other than the automatic qualifiers);
• the top 10 countries from the 2005 semi-final.

The final was held on 21 May 2005 at 22:00 EEST (21:00 CEST) and was won by Greece. 24 countries performed and all 39 participants voted.

Greece won with 230 points. Malta came second with 192 points, with Romania, Israel, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark completing the top ten. Ukraine, Spain, United Kingdom, France and Germany occupied the bottom five positions.

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson who was responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. The order in which each country announced their votes was compiled by placing the countries that failed to qualify from the semi-final first in the running order they performed during the semi-final, followed by the finalists which voted in the order they performed in during the final. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.^[17]

The EBU introduced an undisclosed threshold number of televotes that would have to be registered in each voting country in order to make that country's votes valid. If that number was not reached, the country's backup jury would vote instead. This affected Albania, Andorra and Monaco in the semi-final, and Andorra, Moldova and Monaco in the final.^[18][19]

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the semi-final:

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:

Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators, are shown in the tables below.

In addition to the main winner's trophy, the Marcel Bezençon Awards and the Barbara Dex Award were contested during the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest.

The Marcel Bezençon Awards, organised since 2002 by Sweden's then-Head of Delegation and 1992 representative Christer Björkman, and 1984 winner Richard Herrey, honours songs in the contest's final.^[111] The awards are divided into three categories: Artistic Award which was voted by previous winners of the contest, Composer Award and Press Award.^[112]

The Barbara Dex Award is a humorous fan award given to the worst dressed artist each year. Named after Barbara Dex who came last for Belgium in 1993, wearing her self-designed dress, the award was handed by the fansite House of Eurovision from 1997 to 2016 and is being carried out by the fansite songfestival.be since 2017.^[113]

Eurovision Song Contest: Kyiv 2005 was the official compilation album of the 2005 contest, put together by the European Broadcasting Union and released by EMI Records and CMC International on 2 May 2005. The album featured all 39 songs that entered in the 2005 contest, including the semi-finalists that failed to qualify into the grand final.^[115]

The original cover designed for the album was changed after Lebanon's withdrawal from the Eurovision Song Contest 2005 after announcing they would show advertisements over the Israeli entry. Had they entered, they would have been on track 4, disc 2 with the song "Quand tout s'enfuit" by Aline Lahoud.^[116]

It was reported that sales of the 2005 Eurovision merchandise reached record-breaking levels.^[117]