Love it or loathe it, the Eurovision Song Contest never fails to grab the headlines.

The annual competition has produced international stars – super Swedes Abba perhaps the most notable amongst them.

Its 1974 winning rendition of Waterloo set the band on the road to global pop supremacy.

But the draw for many of the huge audience that tunes in across the continent is the pure quirkiness of some of the performances and performers.

The contest certainly gets the vote of Haworth teenager, Samuel Deakin, who has set-up a website dedicated to the event. The 16-year-old runs escnews.org, from home.

“I’m a Eurovision fan but there was nothing going on between contests so I started the site – which is a non-profit organisation,” said Samuel, a former pupil of Oakbank School in Keighley.

“It began on a small scale about a year ago but there are hundreds of thousands of fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, so our audience size and fan base is rapidly growing all the time.

“The site is now getting hits from all over the world – as far away as Canada, Brazil and Australia. I’ve been fairly surprised but pleased at the response.”

ESC News hosts year-round radio events featuring some of the Eurovision Song Contest’s biggest stars.

The broadcasts often include exclusive new material, and featured artists have ranged from the contest’s first ever winner Lys Assia – who took the title in 1956 – to this year’s victor, Emmelie de Forest.

A new addition to the site is a ‘track of the week’ chosen by ESC News, and occasionally a Eurovision star selects their favourite.

Following the choice of ‘Deeper’ – by Norwegian group Kelner – as track of the week earlier this month, ESC was featured in a leading newspaper in Norway, the Fredriksstad Blad.

The track was produced by JP Paulsen and Bimbo Jones, a top name in the music industry, who works with several international stars.