The contest was won by Norway's Alexander Rybak and his song "Fairytale", which received a record-breaking 387 points, the highest total score in Eurovision history by 95 points. (The highest win to date was Finland in 2006 with 292 points.) Second place went to Iceland, third to Azerbaijan, fourth to Turkey, and the United Kingdom taking 5th, seeing their best placing since 2002.

After criticism of the voting system after the 2007 Contest, changes in the voting procedure were made with the re-introduction of a national jury alongside televoting while the format of the semi-finals remained the same. Forty-two countries participated in the contest; Slovakia announced that it would return to the contest, while San Marino withdrew due to financial issues. Latvia and Georgia originally announced their intention to withdraw, but it was later stated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) that both countries would indeed participate. However, Georgia later decided to withdraw after the EBU rejected its selected song as being a breach of contest rules.