It's a far older program. It is celebrating its 50'th anniversity this year.
It's kind of cool that Ukraine won it last year, so they are hosting the finals this year.
The Norwegian act who also qualified for the big final on saturday had a big orange flag that they waved around in order to celebrate the orange revolution.
It is generally one of the most watched (and hated :-) shows in most European countries. Certainly in Scandinavia. ABBA for instance got its international breakthrough by winning it in the seventies with Waterloo. Others who got their international breakthrough there was Celine Dion who won competing for Switzerland.
Some have claimed that the contest in recent years have been marred by political voting. The commentators on Swedish tv a few years back got into trouble when they came with some disparaging remarks about the Israeli contender. Similarly, the BBC commentator which usually is quite funny, threatened to mobilise the British gun boats outside critical capitals in order to motivate the European public :-)
Anyways, its very camp, but IMHO great fun.
BTW: There was a political scandal this year as well, as Lebanon was to take part for the first time, but Lebanese TV demanded that they should not show Israel's contestant, and was thrown out of the competition.
Cheers.