The Eurovision Song Contest is back on our screens tonight. Christen Pears looks at what makes this tacky exhibition so successful.

EVEN long-serving host Terry Wogan admits it's "rubbish" but the much-derided Eurovision Song Contest still holds a strange fascination for millions of viewers.

We love to hate the processed pop tunes and the banal ballads churned out by contestants year after year. The words "nil points", spoken in a foreign accent, give us a strange, inexplicable thrill.

Turn on your computer and type Eurovision Song Contest into your search engine and you'll find dozens of sites dedicated to the competition. Packed with facts and figures and endless trivia, they're maintained by hardcore fans - people who devote their lives to the competition, collecting records and memorabilia and travelling to the host country each year to enjoy the live experience.

So what it is about the high-kitsch competition that makes it such compulsive viewing? Perhaps it's the very tackiness itself.

The host countries may think they're putting on an evening of classy entertainment but we all know it's cheesy - and we love it. No one expects a fine musical performance. We want to cringe at the songs and deride the performers' dancing skills. Who can forget the Bucks Fizz Girls' shedding their skirts in Making Your Mind Up?

"People say it's rubbish and they're right," says Wogan. "But there has to be a place for this kind of grandiose, banal and unmissable rubbish. I think it's terrific."

But despite regular savagings by the critics, Eurovision has provided the big break for a galaxy of stars. It's 14 years since Celine Dion, then an unknown French/Canadian singer, stepped onto the stage at Dublin's Point Theatre to sing for Switzerland. She beat the United Kingdom's entry by just one point and went on to become one of the biggest-selling artists of all time.

Abba, Julio Iglesias, Lulu and Cliff Richard have all made their mark on the contest over the years but sadly (or perhaps fortunately, depending on your point of view) most of the other participants have been consigned to the dustbin of popular music.

Now in its 47th year, the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast live from the Estonian capital Tallinn tonight. Sahlene will be flying the home country's flag with Runaway, while the United Kingdom's hopes rest on former Pop Idol contestant Jessica Garlick. But will her rendition of Come Back be good enough to take the title?

The 21-year-old Welsh singer will be up against 23 other performers, including Russia's ageing answer to Take That! and a group of transvestites from Slovenia. It promises to be a fascinating night.

* The Eurovision Song Contest BBC1 tonight, 8pm.