It took place in Belgrade, Serbia, following the country's victory at the 2007 contest with the song "Molitva" by Marija Šerifović.

The official website, eurovision.tv, streamed national finals for this year's contest live on ESCTV for the first time.

[5] Furthermore, for the first time the winner has been awarded the perpetual glass microphone trophy of the Eurovision Song Contest.

This ceremony is meant to be a tradition from the 2008 contest and onward, and the ring contains a key from every city that has ever hosted the competition.

[10] Following the unilateral Kosovo declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008, which has resulted in protests and unrest across the country, the location of the event was considered to be changed.

Austria did not compete; its broadcaster, ORF, said "we've already seen in 2007 that it's not the quality of the song, but the country of origin that determines the decision.

Janković served as an anchor of the RTS morning show and hosted the allocation draw ceremony held earlier that year, while Joksimović represented Serbia and Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 and hosted the allocation draw with Janković in January.

The replacement logo, a treble clef, formed the graphical basis of the design created by Boris Miljković.

According to RTS the stage represented native identities, history and modern themes, symbols and universally recognised messages.

Pyrotechnics were heavily used for the entries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Finland, Germany, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Switzerland.

[citation needed] At a press conference in Helsinki in May 2007, Svante Stockselius, executive supervisor of the contest for the EBU, announced that the competition's format may be expanded to two semi-finals in 2008 or 2009.

[33] Although originally this option was not being considered due to the additional costs to such a production,[33] it was later decided that the two semi-finals would be held on different days, both live, on Tuesday 20 May and 22 May 2008.

[34] Based on research conducted by the EBU's tele-voting partner Digame, the semi-finalists were sorted into the two heats through the drawing of lots, which was seeded to keep countries that have a significant history of voting for each other apart.

The draw for the semi-final allocation occurred in the City Assembly of Belgrade on Monday 28 January 2008 at 13:00 CET and was conducted by the hosts of the contest Jovana Janković and Željko Joksimović.

From the draw conducted, it was decided which of the five grand finalist countries would broadcast and have voting rights in either of the events.

The top nine songs from the televoting qualified for the grand final, and a tenth was determined by the back-up juries.

[citation needed] However, all other countries broadcast the show only in standard definition, and the event will only be available to buy on a standard-definition DVD; it will not be released on HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

A live broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest was available worldwide via satellite through European streams such as TVRi, ERT World, ARMTV, TVE Internacional, TRT International, TVP Polonia, RTP Internacional, RTS Sat and SVT Europa.

[citation needed] The official Eurovision Song Contest website also provided a live stream without commentary via the peer-to-peer medium Octoshape.

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.

After all votes were cast, the top-ranked entry in the 2008 poll was Sweden's "Hero" performed by Charlotte Perrelli; the top five results are shown below.