| Eurovision Song Contest 2016 | |
|---|---|
| Come Together | |
 | |
| Dates | |
| Semi-final 1 | 10 May 2016 |
| Semi-final 2 | 12 May 2016 |
| Final | 14 May 2016 |
| Host | |
| Venue | Globe Arena Stockholm, Sweden |
| Presenter(s) | |
| Directed by |
|
| Executive supervisor | Jon Ola Sand |
| Executive producer |
|
| Host broadcaster | Sveriges Television (SVT) |
| Website | eurovision |
| Participants | |
| Number of entries | 42 |
| Number of finalists | 26 |
| Debuting countries | None |
| Returning countries | |
| Non-returning countries | |
| |
| Vote | |
| Voting system | Each country awards two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to ten songs. |
| Winning song | |
The Eurovision Song Contest 2016 was the 61st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Stockholm, Sweden, following the country's victory at the 2015 contest with the song "Heroes" by Måns Zelmerlöw. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT), the contest was held at the Globe Arena and consisted of two semi-finals on 10 and 12 May, and a final on 14 May 2016. The three live shows were presented by Petra Mede and the previous year's winner Måns Zelmerlöw.
Forty-two countries participated in the contest. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine returned after absences from recent contests, while Australia also returned after debuting as a special guest in 2015. Portugal did not enter, largely due to their national broadcaster's insufficient promotion of its music-based media, while Romania had planned to participate, but was disqualified due to repeated non-payment of debts by its national broadcaster to the EBU.
The winner was Ukraine with the song "1944", performed and written by Jamala. Australia, Russia, Bulgaria and host country Sweden rounded out the top five. This was the first time since the introduction of professional jury voting in 2009 that the overall winner won neither the jury vote, which was won by Australia, nor the televote, which was won by Russia, with Ukraine placing second in both. "1944" is the first song containing lyrics in Crimean Tatar to win the contest.
The Czech Republic managed to qualify for the final for the first time in five attempts since its debut in 2007, while both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Greece failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, the latter being absent from the final for the first time since 2000. In the final, Australia's second-place finish was an improvement on its fifth-place finish in 2015, while Bulgaria finished fourth, its best result since its debut and first participation in a final since 2007.
The contest was the first to implement a voting system change since 1975: each country's professional jury points were announced largely as before, while the results of each national televote were combined and announced in reverse order. It was also the first contest to be broadcast on live television in the United States, and the EBU recorded a record-breaking 204 million viewers for the contest, beating the 2015 viewing figures by over 5 million.