After criticism of the voting system in 2007, changes in the voting procedure were finally made prior to this contest, with the re-introduction of a national jury alongside televoting for the final, while the format of the semi-finals remained the same.
The winner was Norway with the song "Fairytale", performed and written by Alexander Rybak. The song received a record-breaking 387 points out of a possible 492, at the time the highest total score in the history of the contest. Iceland, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the United Kingdom rounded out the top five.