A history of HCSC websites

The first website for the Home Composed Song Contest was created by Martin Faulkner in 2000, with statistics provided by Michael Bauer.

The main purpose of the site was to document the results from the early years of the competition, including sound files in RealAudio format (this was before the mp3 had become common currency!). The contest itself would not be held online with a dedicated website until the mid-2000s.

You can see a few screenshots below (click to enlarge). The website survived in this form until 2004, when it was comprehensively redesigned.

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  The front page of the first website

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  The page for HCSC 2001 as it looked on the first website

The next version of the website lasted from 2004 to 2018. It featured a significantly updated and more compact design (by 2004 standards!), supplemented by graphics from Mark Henson including the now-established HCSC "house" logo.

The statistics section was significantly expanded, and the emergence of the competition into the digital age (no more cassettes!) was reflected by the fact that the accompanying sound files were now available to stream and download in mp3 format.

You can see a few screenshots of the site below - click to enlarge them.

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  The index page of the second website in its final update from late 2017

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  The page for HCSC 2001 as it looked on the second website

In 2018, the old HTML website was replaced by this Wiki-style site you are reading now. As well as being more modern and familiar to users of the Eurovision Song Contest pages on Wikipedia, this makes it easier for other people to be given editing rights or even for the archive to be passed on to someone new entirely - thus safeguarding the future of the Home Composed Song Contest's past!