The polls for the third annual esctoday.com awards closed at midnight CET and now it is time to reveal the results, which are traditionally made public on Christmas Eve, 24th December. More than 16,000 votes were cast and as always, we start with what could be called the top category: Song of the year!

The 2008 esctoday.com award for Song of the year goes to…

• SENHORA DO MAR by Vânia Fernandes of Portugal

The Portuguese entry Senhora do mar was an early fan favourite. The lyrics were written by Carlos Coelho and the music was composed by Eurovision Song Contest veteran Andrej BabiÄ�, who had already written songs for Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Slovenia. Performed by Vânia Fernandes, it easily won the Portuguese national final with by far more than twice as many votes than the runner-up. In the second Eurovision Song Contest semi final, it was the last songto be performed on stage and eventually finished second with 120 points. It was the first time since the introduction of the semi finals that Portugal made it to the final and the highest Portuguese placement in the contest ever. In the final, Vânia was drawn on the unlucky 13th spot right after the break andat the close of voting, the song had received 69 points and therefore finished 13th. The song follows in the footsteps of the Romanian entry Tornerò in 2006 and the Serbian entry Molitva in 2007, which won this award before.

The complete results:

1. Senhora do mar by Vânia Fernandes of Portugal
2. Hold on be strong by Maria Haukaas Storeng of Norway
3. Hero by Charlotte Perrelli of Sweden
4. This is my life by Euroband of Iceland
5. Shady lady by Ani Lorak of Ukraine
6. Secret combination by Kalomira of Greece
7. Qele qele by Sirusho of Armenia
8. Believe by Dima Bilan of Russia

The Portuguesewon thecategory with 21.3% of thevotesand it is the first time that a song that finished outside the top five won this award. The Norwegian entry Hold on be strong reached second place with respectable 17.4%. Two major fan favourites in the classic Europop style follow in third and fourth place: Hero from Sweden and This is my life from Iceland with 15.4% and 14.2% respectively. Not so far behind follows Shady lady from Ukraine with 12.6 %. Secret Combination from Greece and Believe from Russia close this category with a larger gapgetting 7.2% and 5.3%. Remarkably, it is the first time a winning entry finished last in this category.

More results will be revealed throughout the day. Stay tuned!

Watch the performance of the 2008 Song of the year below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NazDgzj3d7M