Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019
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Slovenia| Slovenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eurovision Song Contest 2019 | ||||
| Participating broadcaster | Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO) | |||
| Country | Slovenia | |||
| Selection process | Evrovizijska Melodija 2019 | |||
| Selection date | 16 February 2019 | |||
| Competing entry | ||||
| Song | "Sebi" | |||
| Artist | Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl | |||
| Songwriters |
| |||
| Placement | ||||
| Semi-final result | Qualified (6th, 167 points) | |||
| Final result | 15th, 105 points | |||
| Participation chronology | ||||
| ||||
Slovenia was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with the song "Sebi", written and performed by Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl. The Slovene participating broadcaster, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO), organised the national final Evrovizijska Melodija 2019 in order to select its entry for the contest. Ten entries competed in the national final where the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, the top two entries were selected by a three-member jury panel. In the second round, "Sebi" performed by Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl was selected as the winner entirely by a public televote.
Slovenia was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 14 May 2019. Performing during the show in position 5, "Sebi" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and hence qualified to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Slovenia placed sixth out of the 17 participating countries in the semi-final with 167 points. In the final, Slovenia performed in position 10 and placed fifteenth out of the 26 participating countries with 105 points.
Prior to the 2019 contest, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Slovenia twenty-four times since its first entry in 1993.[1] Its highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been seventh place, achieved on two occasions: in 1995 with the song "Prisluhni mi" performed by Darja Švajger and in 2001 with the song "Energy" performed by Nuša Derenda. The country's only other top ten result was achieved in 1997 when Tanja Ribič performing "Zbudi se" placed tenth. Since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004, Slovenia had thus far only managed to qualify to the final on five occasions. In 2018, "Hvala, ne!" performed by Lea Sirk qualified to the final and placed twenty-second.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, RTVSLO organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. The broadcaster confirmed its participation in the 2019 contest on 6 September 2018.[2] The broadcaster has traditionally selected its entry through a national final entitled Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), which has been produced with variable formats. To this point, the broadcaster has only foregone the use of this national final in 2013 when the entry was internally selected. For 2019, the broadcaster opted to organise Evrovizijska Melodija 2019 (EMA 2019) to select the entry.
Before Eurovision
EMA 2019
EMA 2019 was the 23rd edition of the Slovenian national final format Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA), used by RTV Slovenija to select Slovenia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The competition took place at the RTV Slovenija Studio 1 in Ljubljana, hosted by Ajda Smrekar and was broadcast on TV SLO 1, Radio Val 202, Radio Koper, Radio Maribor and online via the broadcaster's RTV 4D platform.[3] An online backstage broadcast at RTV Slovenija's official website also occurred concurrently with the competition, which was hosted by Tanja Kocman and Rok Bohinc.[4] The national final was watched by 223,900 viewers in Slovenia with a market share of 11%.[5]
Format
Ten songs competed in a televised show where the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a three-member expert jury selected two finalists out of the ten competing songs to proceed to a superfinal. Each member of the expert jury assigned a score of 1 (lowest score) to 5 (highest score) to each song with the top two being determined by the songs that receive the highest overall scores when the jury votes are combined. Ties were broken by giving priority to the song(s) that achieved a higher number of top scores (5), which would be followed by each juror indicating their preferred song should a tie still have persisted. In the superfinal, public televoting exclusively determined the winner. In case of technical problems with the televote, the jury would have voted to determine the winner in a similar process as in the first round of the competition.[6]
Competing entries
Artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster between 9 November 2018 and 14 December 2018.[7] 103 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period.[8] An expert committee consisting of Lea Sirk (2018 Slovenian Eurovision entrant), Mojca Menart (Head of ZKP RTV Slovenija), Aleksander Radić (Head of the Slovenian delegation at the Eurovision Song Contest) and Žiga Klančar (music editor for Radio Val 202) selected ten artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions. The competing artists were announced on 27 December 2018. Among the competing artists was former Slovenian Junior Eurovision contestant Ula Ložar who represented Slovenia in 2014.[9]
Final
EMA 2019 took place on 16 February 2019. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, Smaal Tokk, Inot and 2018 Slovenian Eurovision entrant Lea Sirk performed as guests. The winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a three-member jury panel selected two entries to proceed to the second round. The jury consisted of Lea Sirk, Darja Švajger (1995 and 1999 Slovenian Eurovision entrant) and Vladimir Graić (composer of Serbia's winning Eurovision entry "Molitva" in 2007).[10] In the second round, a public televote selected "Sebi" performed by Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl as the winner.[11]
| R/O | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kim | "Rhythm Back to You" | Maraaya, Jimmy Jansson, Samuel Waermö, Art Hunter | 8 |
| 2 | Renata Mohorič | "Three Bridges" | Grigor Koprov, Stiko Per Larsson | 9 |
| 3 | René | "Ne poveš" | Jean Markič | 10 |
| 4 | Fed Horses | "Ti ne poznaš konjev" | Jure Mihevc, Urša Mihevc | 3 |
| 5 | Ula Ložar | "Fridays" | Maraaya, Anej Piletič, Charlie Mason | 3 |
| 6 | Lumberjack | "Lepote dna" | Drago Popovič, Jaka Novak, Robi Glač, Blaž Kuster, David Podgornik, Rok Ahačevčič | 6 |
| 7 | Okustični | "Metulji plešejo" | Mate Bro, Karin Zemljič | 5 |
| 8 | Inmate | "Atma" | Andrej Bezjak, Marko Duplišak, Jure Grudnik, Miha Oblišar | 7 |
| 9 | Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl | "Sebi" | Zala Kralj, Gašper Šantl | 1 |
| 10 | Raiven | "Kaos" | Sara Briški Cirman, July Jones, Lazy Joe, Peter Khoo, Alba | 1 |
| R/O | Artist | Song | Televote | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl | "Sebi" | 4,666 | 1 |
| 2 | Raiven | "Kaos" | 1,735 | 2 |
Preparation
Following Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl's win at EMA 2019, the music video of "Sebi" was released to the public on 20 February. The video was directed and produced by Žiga Krajnc who previously collaborated with Kralj and Šantl on the music videos for their singles "Baloni", "S teboi" and "Valovi".[12]
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