The fourth esctoday.com TOP TEN list continues today with the places 7 and 6 being announced. As announced on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN most impressive debuts.

The ranking will in fact be based on a mathematical formula that consideres the following criteria:

1. A country's placing
2. The number of countries taking part in a certain year
3. The number of countries having their debut in a certain year
4. The participation of a country under a different name/flag in previous years

Here is a fictive example to show how the raking will work:

Let's say in 1953, ten countries competed in the contest: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J. The countries A, B and C take part for the first time, the other countries have already taken part in previous editions. If country A is the highest placed debuting country finishing second, how impressive is that debut?

Although a second place is always impressive, it is not as impressive for a debuting country as it seems in the first place for the following reasons:

• Only ten countries took part. Therefore every country has a mathematical chance of strong 20% to reach the top two.
• Three debuting countries took part. Therefore, the mathimatical chances of at least one of them reaching the top two stands at about 53%!

For this reason, the seven countries that competed in the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 are excluded from the top ten. The mathematical chances of a debuting country winning was 100% – Lys Assia's picture in the logo is therefore purely symbolical.

The full formula will be revealed on Saturday.

No. 7 – Norway (1960)

Norway was the third Scandinavian country to join the Eurovision Song Contest when they did so. As no country withdrew and as Luxembourg returned to the competition, a total of 13 countries was taking part. The Norwegian representative for London was determined during a national final. Before the final, a semi final had already been held with 11 songs competing. All songs were performed by Inger Jacobsen and Jens Book-Jensen and the top six qualified for the final, where they would be performed by six different artists. Nora Brockstedt was the clear winner with her song Voi-voi and she would therefore become the first Norwegian entrant in the competition. In London, she finished equal fourth with eleven points. It was not the last time that she represented her country in Eurovision. Already the year after, she won the Norwegian national final again and went to Cannes, where her song Sommer i Palma finished seventh. She also returned the national final Melodi Grand Prix in 1963, 1965, 1968 and 1977. In fact, in 1963 she won the national final again, but she withdrew and Anita Thallaug was sent to London instead. Nora Brockstedt is still active in the music business, but mainly as a jazz vocalist.

The fourth place would remain Norway's best result untilÅse Kleveland made the top three in 1966. In general, the country's results have often been like on a rollercoaster. Although Norway won three times and finished in the top ten another 16 times, the country is also the one with the most last places. Also counting shared last places, Norway was at the very bottom a total of 10 times – that means that one fifth of their participations resulted in a last place.

No. 6 – Azerbaijan (2008)

Azerbaijan was one of two countries to join the Eurovision Song Contest family in 2008. A big national final, which was mainly a concert of former participants from other countries, was organised. Three performers competed for the ticket to Belgrade with two songs each and a jury alone picked Elnur Hüseynov with the song Day after day. He was joined by supporting performer Samir Cavadzade on the international stage, where they performed the song as Elnur & Samir. Although 2008 was the contest with the most participants to date (43 in total), Azerbaijan achieved a remarkable eighth place, which means they made the first fifth of all contestants right away. The duo split again after the contest, but they are persuing their solo careers. Elnur is currently playing the role of Phoebes in Notre dame de Paris in Baku.

Although Azerbaijan had a strong debut, their two other entries so far were even more successful finishing third and fith respectively. Both Always in 2009 and Drip drop in 2010 were considered favourites according to the bookmakers and after the contest, both songs entered the single charts of many countries around Europe.

Tomorrow, we will introduce the numbers 5 and 4 on the list.