Germany participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 with the song "Can't Wait Until Tonight" written by Stefan Raab. The song was performed by Max. Songwriter Stefan Raab represented Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 with the song "Wadde hadde dudde da?" where he placed fifth in the competition. The German entry for the 2004 contest in Istanbul, Turkey was selected through the national final Germany 12 Points!, organised by the German broadcaster ARD in collaboration with Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The national final took place on 19 March 2004 and featured ten competing acts with the winner being selected through two rounds of public televoting. "Can't Wait Until Tonight" performed by Max was selected as the German entry for Istanbul after placing first in the top two during the first round of voting and ultimately gaining 853,688 votes in the second round.
As a member of the "Big Four", Germany automatically qualified to compete in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Performing in position 8, Germany placed eighth out of the 24 participating countries with 93 points.
Background
Prior to the 2004 Contest, Germany had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest forty-seven times since its debut as one of seven countries to take part in . Germany has won the contest on one occasion: in 1982 with the song "Ein bißchen Frieden" performed by Nicole. Germany, to this point, has been noted for having competed in the contest more than any other country; they have competed in every contest since the first edition in 1956 except for the 1996 contest when the nation was eliminated in a pre-contest elimination round. In 2003, the German entry "Let's Get Happy" performed by Lou placed eleventh out of twenty-six competing songs scoring 53 points.
The German national broadcaster, ARD, broadcasts the event within Germany and delegates the selection of the nation's entry to the regional broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). NDR confirmed that Germany would participate in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest on 19 May 2003. Since 1996, NDR had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Germany. On 26 September 2003, the broadcaster also announced that they would organise a multi-artist national final in cooperation with private music channel VIVA to select the German entry, with the goal of finding songs that have international hit potential instead of those "which do not stand a chance to chart in Germany or abroad and which rather burdened the image of the Eurovision Song Contest in the past."
Before Eurovision
Germany 12 Points! Germany 12 Points! was the competition that selected Germany's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The competition took place on 19 March 2004 at the Treptow Arena in Berlin, hosted by Sarah Kuttner and Jörg Pilawa. Ten acts competed during the show with the winner being selected through a public televote. The show was broadcast on Das Erste as well as online via the broadcaster's Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.de. The national final was watched by 5.71 million viewers in Germany with a market share of 18%.
Competing entries
Eight acts were selected by a panel consisting of representatives of the music channel VIVA from proposals received by NDR from record companies. The eight competing artists were announced between 25 November 2003 and 21 January 2004, and each of the artists were required to submit a professional music video for their entry to be presented on the VIVA programme Euroclash starting from 12 January 2004. An additional two acts were later selected by NDR as wildcards due to their top 40 placement in the German singles charts in early 2004: winner of the talent show SSDSGPS Max Mutzke and Tina Frank. Singer Masha was originally announced to have been awarded a wildcard for the competition, but she ultimately did not participate as her entry "Right Here" failed to enter the top 40 of the German singles charts before the show.