The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held between active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), in which participating countries each submit a song to be performed on live television; then proceed to cast votes for the other countries' songs, in order to find the most popular song in the competition. Each country participates via one of their national EBU-member television stations, whose task it is to select a singer and a song to go forward to represent the country in the international competition.
The Contest has been broadcast every year since its inauguration in 1956, and is one of the longest-running television programmes in the world. It is also the world's biggest song contest in terms of audience figures, which in recent years have been quoted as anything between 100 million and 600 million internationally. It has been broadcast around the globe — beyond Europe — to such countries as Australia, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Hong Kong, India, Korea, New Zealand and the USA; even though these countries do not participate. Since the year 2000, the Contest has also been broadcast over the Internet; with more than 74,000 people in almost 140 countries having watched the 2006 edition online. The Contest is historically known for being mainly a bastion of formulaic, orchestrated pop music. However it has produced a vast, diverse array of songs, including such musical genres as Arabic, Balkan, Dance, Folk, Greek, Latin, Metal, Nordic, Pop-rap and Rock.
