Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest

Romania
Member station	TVR
National selection events	Selecţia Naţională 1993–1994 1996 1998 2000 2002–2015
Appearances
Appearances	17 (17 finals)
First appearance	1994
Best result	3rd: 2005, 2010
Worst result	22nd: 1998
External links
TVR page
Romania's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015

Romania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times, debuting in the 1994 contest. With a total of five top 10 placements, their best results have been third in 2005 with Luminița Anghel & Sistem, fourth in 2006 with Mihai Trăistariu, and third in 2010 with Paula Seling & Ovi.

Romania’s participation in the contest has been suspended as on 22 April 2016, the EBU suspended broadcaster Televiziunea Română (TVR) from all EBU member services due to the repeated non-payment of debts going back to 2007 and the threat of insolvency. This in turn disqualified their 2016 entry, "Moment of Silence" sung by Ovidiu Anton, from participating despite the contest being 17 days away at that point.^[1] However, it is now officially resolved and they are returning to Eurovision in 2017.^[2]

History

1993–1998

Romania originally had chosen Dida Drăgan for the Eurovision Song Contest 1993, but after she failed to qualify from the qualifying round, Romania had to wait a year, before they could debut in the contest.

In 1994 Romania debuted in Ireland by sending Dan Bittman as the country's first contestant with the song "Dincolo de nori", by failing to receive a high place in the final, Romania was not allowed to participate in 1995, and had to wait until 1996.^[3]

In 1996 Romania selected Monica Anghel and Sincron for the contest in Oslo, Norway, but Romania failed to qualify from the pre-qualifying round, so the country was eliminated and because of the low results in the previous years, Romania did not enter for the 1997 contest.

In 1998 Romania made a comeback to the contest after missing 4 years of the contest, the country was represented by Mălina Olinescu with the song "Eu cred", but the low place back then resulted that Romania could not come back to the contest before in 2000.^[4]

2000

In 2000 Romania again returned to the contest held in Stockholm, Sweden, when the band Taxi got the chance for representing the country, with the first song to be on English, also Taxi did not succeed to get a high place, so yet again Romania would have to miss the 2001 contest held in Denmark. Even though, they managed to bring the first twelve points for Romania, given by Macedonia.^[5]

2002

After missing the 2001 contest, Romania returned to the contest held in Tallinn, Estonia in 2002, Romania finally received their first top 10 place since their debut, Romania was back then represented by Monica Anghel and Marcel Pavel with the song "Tell Me Why", Romania ended on 9th place with 71 points of which 12 points from two countries: Macedonia and Russia.^[6]

2003

The success from last year continued, Romania received another top 10 place in Riga, Nicola and her song "Don't Break My Heart" just got into the top 10 by receiving a total of 73 points, which meant that Romania would compete in the final in 2004, even without needing to compete in the semi-final. Once again, they received twelve points from Russia.^[7]

2004

In 2004, Romania sent Sanda to compete for the country with the song "I Admit", Romania did not manage to receive their third top 10 in a row, after a disappointing 18th place with only 18 points, which meant this time, that Romania would have to compete in the semi-final of 2005 in order to qualify to the final. Yet they received ten points from Spain.^[8]

2005

In 2005, Romania sent Luminița Anghel and Sistem in order to help the country back to the final, and as hoped they succeeded, but not only that, Romania also got their first top 3 place in the contest by ending on third place with a total of 158 points, only beaten by Greece and Malta in the final, but at the semi-final, 2 days earlier, Romania ended on first place, with a total amount of 235 points, which meant they won the semi-final with a margin of 28 points in front of neighbouring country Moldova. Romania was on 1st place in the semi-final with 235 points, more points than those received by winning Greece in the final. In the semi-final, Romania received twelve points from Moldova, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Hungary, of which Spain and Israel also gave their maximum to them in the final, accompanied by Portugal.Up to date, Romania's best result is third. ^[9][10]

2006

Romania continued the good streak by sending Mihai Trăistariu and his Italian named song "Tornerò" to Athens, Romania was also one of the hot favourites to take the gold, and being the next host country, but failed after being beaten by countries as Finland, Russia and Bosnia & Herzegovina in the final, which all of them had qualified to the final from the semi-final 2 days earlier, which meant that Romania ended on 4th place with 172 points, which is the highest amount of points Romania has ever received in a final, the fourth place also meant that Romania was qualified for the final in Helsinki. They got twelve points from Moldova and Spain solely, but received at least one point from every voting nation that year but the Netherlands and Monaco.^[11]

2007

In 2007, Romania selected Todomondo for the Eurovision Song Contest held in Helsinki, their song "Liubi, Liubi, I Love You" was sung on six different languages, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French and Romanian, they received the highest place outside the top 10 for the country, a 13th place with 84 points. Yet they received a couplet of twelve points (from Moldova and Spain) among others.^[12]

2008

After the disappointing result in 2007, Romania hoped to get another comeback, and decided to send Nico and Vlad and the Italian and Romanian song "Pe-o margine de lume" to Belgrade, but failed to help Romania into the top 10, even though they qualified from the semi-final, it all ended by a 20th place with 45 points. The song wasn't a failure, as it won the Marcel Bezençon composer' award and it received twelve points from Moldova and Spain.^[13][14]

2009

After two years of failing, Romania decided that Elena Gheorghe would have to go to the finals in Moscow, with a typical Romanian song "The Balkan Girls", which includes music style from the Balkans and Romania, but yet again Romania failed to get a high place in the final, the result ended in giving Romania a total of 40 points, and ending on 19th place. Gheorghe only took top points from Moldova, which awarded her 12 points. Spain, which usually gave Romania their twelve points only rewarded them with seven points.^[15][16]

2010

After three years being outside the top 10 in the final, Romania made some few changes for their national selection, by skipping the semi-finals, it all ended by both the televoters and the juries agreeing that Paula Seling and Ovi, would be the best choice for the country in Oslo with the song "Playing with Fire". They managed to qualify for the final by ending on 4th place in the semi-final, but in the final they even got a better result ending on the third place which meant they had equalised Romania’s best result from 2005, with a total of 162 points, only 8 points away from second place, which was given to Turkey. They got the maximum twelve points from Moldova, 10 points from Spain, Portugal, Israel, Norway and Sweden and eight points from the United Kingdom, Denmark and Cyprus.^[17][18]

2011

The Romanian selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 was held on New Year's Eve, where 13 songs competed to represent Romania in Germany, and was hosted by the previous Romanian contestants, Paula Seling & Ovi. During the National Selection, a special act was held after the midnight passed. Niamh Kavanagh, Chiara Siracusa, Paula Seling and Ovi sang together 'Happy New Year', song originally composed by ABBA. The winner was the band Hotel FM (Gabriel Băruţa (piano & voice - also the song's composer), David Bryan (main voice) and Alexandru Szűz (drums)) with the song "Change". Hotel FM managed to qualify to the final taking the 4th place in the second semifinal, their song was one of the most appreciated songs before final being even the 8th favorite song. However, as the plans made at home are never matching the real situation from the "market", the British-style song "Change" took only the 17th place with no points from UK, David Bryan's home country. It is still one of Romania's worst placings in history, receiving 77 points and getting top points four times. They got the maximum 12 points from Italy and Moldova, 10 points from Belgium and 8 points from Spain.^[19][20]

2012

In 2012, the selection was won by Mandinga with their already smash hit "Zaleilah", the first time that the tele-voting favorite wins the contest. They managed to qualify for the final, maintaining Romania's shared record for not missing a single final, taking the third place in the semi-final, the best ranking since 2005 when Romania came first in the semi-final. They also received the maximum twelve points from three countries, Spain and Moldova, which constantly votes for Romania and also from Ireland, which gave their first ever twelve points to Romania that year. Even though considered a favorite, Romania didn't manage to enter the top-ten in the grand final, but placed better than in the previous year. They entered the first half of the ranking, placing twelfth. They received twelve points from Moldova, 10 points from Spain, 7 points from Greece and Italy, and so on. They finished with a total of 71 points, 6 points behind last year's Hotel FM.^[21][22]

2013

TVR opened submission for the 2013 National Final on 14 January 2013.

This year for the first time, artists from all over Romania were able to submit their entries to local offices of TVR. A total of 148 songs were submitted by both Romanian composers and songwriters from the United Kingdom, Turkey, Israel, Sweden and France, who either entered songs on their own or in collaboration with Romanian composers or singers. During the pre-selection phase this was reduced to 32 by a panel of professional judges after live auditions around Romania. After the Semi-Finals this was reduced to 12 who competed in Romania's National Final on 9 March 2013. Also, Luminita Anghel, old contestant who participated for Romania in 2005 sent a song to the national selection.

The winner of Romania's national final was "It's My Life" by Cezar, who performed at the 2013 final in Malmö, Sweden. Romania placed 13th with a total of 65 points. Romania didn't receive a single 12 top points this year. Romania who normally receive good points from Italy, Spain and Israel, only gave Cezar 1 point from Italy, while Israel nor Spain didn't reward 1 single point in the final, according to the split results released by the EBU, Cezar came 1st with the televoters, in the second semi-final.

Contestants

Table key

NOTES:

a. ^ Romania attempted to participate in 1993 when there was a pre-qualifying round for seven countries hoping to make their debut in the contest and in 1996 when there was an audio only pre-qualifier for all countries (excluding hosts Norway). Romania is one of only two countries (along with Hungary) to have unsuccessfully attempted to participate in both those years. The official Eurovision site does not count either year in Romania's list of appearances.

b. If a country won the previous year, they did not have to compete in Semi Finals. In addition, back in the early 2005-2007 era, countries who done well did not have to compete in Semi Finals the following year. The top ten non-Big four along with the Big four countries automatically qualified, for example, if Germany and France placed inside the top 10, the 11th and 12th spots were advanced to next year's Grand Final along with everyone within the top 10.

c ^ Romania initially intended to enter the contest in 2016, however due to non-payment of debts, TVR was disqualified by the EBU from competing at the Eurovision Song Contest.^[1][23]

Voting history

As of 2015, Romania's voting history is as follows:

Most points given in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Greece 106 2  Moldova 94 3  Turkey 70 4  Russia 67 5  Sweden 57 Most points received in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Moldova 125 2  Spain 121 3  Israel 89 4  Portugal 59 5  Greece 53  Cyprus 53

Most points given in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Greece 165 2  Moldova 158 3  Turkey 107 4  Russia 100 5  Hungary 91 Most points received in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Moldova 185 2  Israel 162  Spain 162 4  Greece 106 5  Cyprus 87

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Composer Award

Commentators and spokespersons

Photogallery

• 

  Todomondo at Helsinki (2007)

• 

  Nico & Vlad at Belgrade (2008)

• 

  Mandinga at Baku (2012)

• 

  Cezar at Malmö (2013)

• 

  Paula Seling and Ovi at Copenhagen (2014)

• 

  Voltaj at Vienna (2015)

See also

• Romania in the Eurovision Young Dancers
• Romania in the Eurovision Young Musicians
• Romania in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
• Romania in the Bala Türkvizyon Song Contest
• Romania in the Türkvizyon Song Contest

References

External links

• 'Selecţia Naţională Eurovision' website
• Points to and from Romania eurovisioncovers.co.uk

Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
Participation 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Artists 1990s Dida Drăgan Dan Bittman 1995 Monica Anghel & Sincron 1997 Mălina Olinescu 1999 2000s Taxi 2001 Monica Anghel & Marcel Pavel Nicola Sanda Luminița Anghel & Sistem Mihai Trăistariu Todomondo Nico & Vlad Elena Gheorghe 2010s Paula Seling & Ovi Hotel FM Mandinga Cezar Paula Seling & Ovi Voltaj Ovidiu Anton
Songs 1990s "Nu pleca" "Dincolo de nori" 1995 "Rugă pentru pacea lumii" 1997 "Eu cred" 1999 2000s "The Moon" 2001 "Tell Me Why" "Don't Break My Heart" "I Admit" "Let Me Try" "Tornerò" "Liubi, Liubi, I Love You" "Pe-o margine de lume" "The Balkan Girls" 2010s "Playing with Fire" "Change" "Zaleilah" "It's My Life" "Miracle" "De la capăt" "Moment of Silence"
(Note: Entries scored out are when Romania did not compete)