Turkey's previous appearances: 28 year(s) out of 51 [note] Years participated: 1975; 1978; 1980-1993; 1995- [note] Best result: 1st (2003)
Turkey's long-awaited victory in 2003 proved that persistence can finally pay off. Nearly thirty years after its first appearance in 1975, and with just three previous top ten finishes to show for its efforts (9th in 1986, 3rd in 1997 and 10th in 2000), Turkey finally made it. In one of the closest results ever, the winning song, Sertab Erener's 'Every way that I can', squeaked home with just 2 points more than Belgium, and 3 more than Russia. Cannily, Turkey managed to present a song that was unmistakably Turkish, while making the decision to perform in English - as Sertab herself has admitted, this was almost certainly a factor in securing its narrow victory. The elaborate and impressive dance routine didn't do any harm at all, either. As the previous year's winners, Turkey naturally found themselves qualified directly to the 2004 Final, where punk band Athena finished in an impressive 4th place with 195 points - on this run of form, maybe we could be forgiven for expecting another Turkish victory sooner rather than later.
The last two years, however, have seen Turkey narrowly miss out on top ten placings. In 2005, with Gülseren's 'Rim rimi ley' - a decent song, accompanied by a spectacular show - gained a respectable 92 points, including the maximum 'douze' from both France and the Netherlands, but could only finish 13th. In 2006, Sibel Tüzün's strong performance of ''Süper star' was enough to lift Turkey out of the Semi Final, but a tantalising 91 points and 11th place in the Final - just 2 points behind 10th-placed Ireland - meant that Turkey just missed out on qualifying directly for the Final in 2007. Get 'The Eurovision Song Contest: The Offical History' at Amazon.co.uk
Position in Semi Final draw: 26 Position in Final draw: 22
What I said prior to the Semi Final: "Kenan Doğulu will represent Turkey in Helsinki with the self-penned 'Shake it up shekerim'. On the plus side, the song's catchy and contemporary, and sounds like something you'd find on the latest Justin Timberlake album; on the minus side, it is very repetitive and unlikely to be everyone's cup of tea. Note that, rather patronisingly, the song's title has been tweaked from ''Shake it up şekerim' to 'Shake it up shekerim', just in case people outside Turkey are incapable of pronouncing the song's title correctly. Just after I'd worked how to do the squiggly S in HTML too!!!"
My prediction for Semi Final: 13th to 15th My prediction for Final: Unlikely to qualify What I predicted prior to the Semi Final: "This song doesn't convince me, but I find it hard to judge how it might perform. However, the polls do routinely overestimate Turkish support, and I think this song could miss out on qualifying." Want an alternative prediction? See Simon Hylands' 'Je t'adore, Eurovision!' site
In the run up to the Contest, 1,274 visitors to this site awarded points to their favourite songs in the Soult.com Eurovision Jury Vote 2007, voting as a representative of their own country's 'jury'. The votes awarded by representatives of each country were totalled, with each of the 42 participating countries (plus the 'Rest of the World') then awarding points - 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - based on the overall voting preference of its representatives. The points awarded to the entry from Turkey are shown in the tables below:
Turkey
Points awarded to Turkey ![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_albania.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_andorra.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_armenia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_austria.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_belarus.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_belgium.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_bosnia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_bulgaria.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_croatia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_cyprus.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_czechrepublic.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_denmark.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_estonia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_finland.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_france.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_georgia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_germany.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_greece.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_hungary.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_iceland.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_ireland.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_israel.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_latvia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_lithuania.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_macedonia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_malta.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_moldova.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_montenegro.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_netherlands.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_norway.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_poland.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_portugal.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_romania.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_russia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_serbia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_slovenia.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_spain.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_sweden.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_switzerland.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_ukraine.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_unitedkingdom.gif){kind=small}
![Click here to see a breakdown of all votes awarded by representatives of this country's jury [internal link in new window]](/eurovision/images/flags18x12/flag_world.gif){kind=small}
![[Status: same] Kenan Doğulu with 'Shake it up shekerim', representing Turkey, is currently ranked 7 out of 42, compared to 7 out of 42 after the previous update.](/eurovision/images/juryvote/same15x11.gif){kind=small}
![[Status: up] with '', representing , is currently ranked 4 out of 28, compared to 5 out of 28 after the previous update.](/eurovision/images/juryvote/up15x11.gif){kind=small}