Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest

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Czech Republic
Czech Republic
Member station ČT
National selection events
National final
  • Eurosong
  • 2007–2008
  • 2009 (song)
  • Eurovision Song CZ
  • 2018–2020
  • 2022–2023
Internal selection
  • 2009 (artist)
  • 2015–2017
  • 2021
Participation summary
Appearances10 (4 finals)
First appearance2007
Highest placement6th: 2018
Nul points2009 SF
External links
Czech Republic's page at Eurovision.tv
Song contest current event.png For the most recent participation see
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022

The Czech Republic has participated at the Eurovision Song Contest 10 times since making its debut in 2007. After receiving nul points in the semi-final of the 2009 contest and a lack of interest from the Czech public, Czech broadcaster Česká televize (ČT) decided not to participate in future contests.[1] ČT announced their return to the contest in 2015, with an internal selection being used to select their fourth Eurovision entry.[2]

In 2016, Gabriela Gunčíková became the first Czech entrant to reach the final, finishing 25th with the song "I Stand". After the country failed to qualify in 2017, Mikolas Josef became the second Czech entrant to reach the final and the first to reach the top ten, placing sixth in 2018 with the song "Lie to Me”. In 2019, Czech band Lake Malawi finished eleventh, achieving the country's second best result in the contest. The third best result was achieved in 2022 by the band We Are Domi, finishing 22nd.

History

Before participation

During the time of Czechoslovakia, Československá televize (ČST) is known to have broadcast a number of editions of the Contest in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.[3][4][5][6] Karel Gott, one of the most popular Czechoslovakian artist, represented Austria in the 1968 contest, held in London, United Kingdom. Furthermore, the Prague Theatre of Illuminated Drawings from the Czech capital performed as interval act in the 1984 contest, held in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Czechoslovakia was even a member of EBU for a short time before its dissolution in 1993.

After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic's partner Slovakia immediately attempted to enter the contest in 1993, entering the contest three times between 1994 and 1998, before withdrawing.

Czech broadcaster Česká televize had originally planned to send an entry to the 2005 contest, held in Kyiv, Ukraine. However, this did not materialise for various reasons.[3] ČT again looked at sending an entry to the 2006 contest in Athens, Greece, but failed to do so after having doubts that the country would qualify for the final.[7]

2007–2009: First years of participation

In April 2006, ČT confirmed that they would make their Eurovision debut at the 2007 contest.[8] ČT held a national final to select the first Czech entry. Eurosong 2007 featured 10 songs, with the public voting for the winner through SMS voting. However one song was withdrawn before the show began, leaving only 9 songs to compete. The winner was rock band Kabát with the song "Malá dáma".[9] At the contest's semi-final on 10 May 2007 the Czech Republic performed 16th in the semi-final, however only received one point (which came from Estonia) from the televoters around Europe.

For the 2008 contest, ČT again held a national final to select the entry for the country. 10 acts again competed for the chance to represent the Czech Republic in Serbia, with the winner of Eurosong 2008 being Tereza Kerndlová with "Have Some Fun".[10] At the second semi-final of the contest, Kerndlová performed 8th in the running order, receiving 9 points for her performance (1 point from Turkey and Malta, 2 points from Croatia and 5 points from Macedonia), placing 18th of 19 entries, and failing once again to qualify the Czech Republic to the final.

Despite the two bottom two placements, ČT confirmed its participation in the 2009 contest. ČT decided to hold an internal selection for the artist who would represent the country at the contest in Russia, with a public vote on the song they would sing. The broadcaster chose Romani band Gipsy.cz in January 2009 to compete in Moscow – the band had previously competed in the two previous national finals, coming both times in the top three.[11] Two songs were presented to the Czech public to vote on: "Aven Romale" and "Do You Wanna".[12] After 14 days of voting, "Aven Romale" emerged as the winner, which featured lead singer Radoslav Banga dressing-up as the superhero character Super Gypsy.[13] The group performed 2nd on the night of the first semi-final of the contest, held on 12 May 2009. However, the group managed to receive no points from the 20 countries voting in the semi-final, becoming the 16th entry to achieve this result since the current voting method was introduced in 1975.

On 22 July 2009, ČT announced that they would not return for the 2010 contest, citing a lack of interest from the Czech public and poor viewing figures for the shows.[1] The absence would last for another four years.

2015–present: Return

Despite a July 2014 statement by ČT that the Czech Republic would not participate in the 2015 contest,[14] ČT announced on 19 November 2014 that they would return to the contest in 2015, with a song to be chosen by an expert panel from a field of five specially commissioned nominees.[15] "Hope Never Dies" by Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta failed to qualify from the semi-final; it did, however, give the Czech Republic their best result up to that point, placing 13th in the semi-final with 33 points. In 2016, the Czech Republic qualified to the final for the first time in the contest's history with "I Stand" by Gabriela Gunčíková, which went on to place 25th with 41 points, all from the juries. In 2017, Martina Bárta was internally selected to perform "My Turn", and finished 13th in her semi-final.

The Czech Republic returned to a national selection for the 2018 contest, deciding their contestant by a combined online vote and an international jury of former Eurovision competitors. The winner was "Lie to Me" by Mikolas Josef. During the first dress rehearsal for the first semi-final, Josef suffered a back injury, and was transferred to several hospitals and was temporarily unable to walk, but still promised to perform by the time of the semi-final. The choreography was adjusted to accommodate his injury, and his performance earned the Czech Republic their second appearance in the final. "Lie to Me" wound up placing fifteenth in the jury vote and fourth in the televote, resulting in an overall sixth place. This marked the Czech Republic's first ever top ten placement, and first time receiving televote points in the final. Following this, the Czech Head of Delegation Jan Bors confirmed that the national selection model would be used for future contests as a result of Josef's success.

A similar concept of the national final was used in 2019, deciding the entrant by a combination of an online voting of the Czech public and an international jury of former Eurovision competitors. Unlike the national selection for the 2018 contest, the results of the international voting public were added as one individual jury member. Placing second in the Czech public vote and joint first in the jury vote, "Friend of a Friend" by Lake Malawi emerged as the winner, thus earning the right to represent the Czech Republic in Tel Aviv. Lake Malawi managed to qualify, making it the third time the Czech Republic participated in a Eurovision final. They ended on eleventh place, the country's second best result in the contest.

During the press announcement of the 2019 entry, provisional plans for a televised national final for the 2020 contest were revealed, and the final was to be held on 25 January 2020.[16] However, in November 2019, ČT announced that the televised national final had been cancelled, and that an online selection would again be used.[17] The chosen entrant was Benny Cristo with "Kemama", and was supposed to perform in the second semi-final, but the 2020 contest was ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[18] Instead, Cristo was kept as the Czech representative for the 2021 contest,[19] with his entry, "Omaga", selected internally.[20] Cristo participated in the second semi-final on 20 May 2021, performing 3rd, however, he failed to qualify for the final. It was later revealed that he had finished in 15th place with 23 points, all from the juries.

For the 2022 contest, ČT decided to return to using an online selection. Seven entries competed and the winning entry, "Lights Off" by We Are Domi, was determined by the combination of votes from a twelve-member international jury panel (50%), an international public vote (25%) and a Czech public vote (25%). Both international and Czech users were able to vote via the official Eurovision Song Contest app between 7 and 15 December 2021, and the winner was announced on 16 December 2021.[21][22] We Are Domi performed in the second semi-final on 12 May 2022, and placed fourth with 227 points, thereby achieving the Czech Republic's fourth final appearance. They went on to finish in 22nd place with 38 points.

Participation overview

Table key
2
 Second place
3
 Third place
◁
 Last place
X
 Entry selected but did not compete
Year Entrant Song Language Final Points Semi Points
2007 Kabát "Malá dáma" Czech Failed to qualify 28 ◁ 1
2008 Tereza Kerndlová "Have Some Fun" English 18 9
2009 Gipsy.cz "Aven Romale" English, Romani 18 ◁ 0
2015 Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta "Hope Never Dies" English 13 33
2016 Gabriela Gunčíková "I Stand" English 25 41 9 161
2017 Martina Bárta "My Turn" English Failed to qualify 13 83
2018 Mikolas Josef "Lie to Me" English 6 281 3 232
2019 Lake Malawi "Friend of a Friend" English 11 157 2 242
2020 Benny Cristo "Kemama" English Contest cancelled[a] X
2021 Benny Cristo "Omaga" English[b] Failed to qualify 15 23
2022 We Are Domi "Lights Off" English 22 38 4 227
2023
 Appeared on list of participants †[23]

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

Year Head of delegation Ref.
2015 Radim Smetana
[24]
2016–2019 Jan Bors
[25]
2020 Cyril Hirsch
[26]
2021–2022 Kryštof Šámal
[27]

Commentators and spokespersons

Year Commentator Spokesperson Ref.
2007 Kateřina Kristelová Andrea Savane
2008 Petra Šubrtová
2009 Jan Rejžek
2010–2014 No broadcast Did not participate
2015 Aleš Háma Daniela Písařovicová
2016 Libor Bouček
2017 Radka Rosická
2018
2019
[28]
2021 Jan Maxián and Albert Černý Taťána Kuchařová
2022 Jan Maxián

Gallery

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  2. ^ Contains one sentence in Czech

References

  1. ^ a b Hondal, Victor (22 July 2009). "Czech Republic withdraws from Eurovision". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
  2. ^ Siim, Jarmo (19 November 2014). "Czech Republic returns to Eurovision". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
  3. ^ a b Bakker, Sietse (3 December 2004). "CZECH REPUBLIC WITHDRAWS". ESCToday. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  4. ^ Bakker, Sietse (25 December 2008). "Do you remember... Amsterdam 1970?". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  5. ^ Roxburgh, Gordon (2016). Songs for Europe: The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Three: The 1980s. Prestatyn: Telos Publishing. pp. 86–103. ISBN 978-1-84583-118-9.
  6. ^ Roxburgh, Gordon (2020). Songs For Europe - The United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest. Volume Four: The 1990s. UK: Telos Publishing. pp. 65–76. ISBN 978-1-84583-163-9.
  7. ^ Bakker, Sietse (6 October 2005). "No Czech Republic in Athens". ESCToday. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  8. ^ Busa, Alexandru (16 April 2006). "Czech Republic will join in 2007". ESCToday. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  9. ^ Floras, Stella (11 March 2009). "Czech Republic: Kabat with Mala dama". ESCToday. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  10. ^ Schacht, Andreas (26 January 2008). "Tereza Kerndlova represents Czech colours!". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  11. ^ Siim, Jarmo (30 January 2009). "Gipsy.cz competing for Czech Republic". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  12. ^ Jiandani, Sanjay (1 March 2009). "Czech Republic: Listen to the songs". ESCToday. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  13. ^ Siim, Jarmo (26 March 2008). "Czech Republic: Gipsy with a dot". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  14. ^ Jiandani, Sanjay (29 July 2014). "Czech Republic: CT will not return in Eurovision 2015". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
  15. ^ "Czech Republic back in Eurovision". PraguePost.com. Retrieved 21 November 2014.
  16. ^ "Česko posílá na Eurovizi kapelu Lake Malawi s Albertem Černým. Poslechněte si vítěznou píseň" (in Czech). Česká televize. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  17. ^ Farren, Neil (6 November 2019). "Czech Republic: No Televised National Final in 2020". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  18. ^ "Official EBU statement & FAQ on Eurovision 2020 cancellation". European Broadcasting Union (EBU). 18 March 2020. Archived from the original on 18 March 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  19. ^ "Hey Kemama! Czech Republic confirms Benny Cristo as their entry for Eurovision 2021". Wiwibloggs. 16 May 2020.
  20. ^ "Benny Cristo unleashes 'omaga' for the Czech Republic". Eurovision.tv. 16 February 2021. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  21. ^ "Česká televize uzavřela přihlašování skladeb do národního kola ESCZ 2022". ceskatelevize.cz (in Czech). Česká televize. Archived from the original on 16 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  22. ^ "Czech Republic reveals lucky 7 for 'ESCZ 2022' 🇨🇿". eurovision.tv. 6 December 2021. Archived from the original on 6 December 2021. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  23. ^ "Eurovision 2023: Here are the 37 countries competing in Liverpool". Eurovision.tv. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
  24. ^ Granger, Anthony (2019). "Czech Republic: Was HoD even in 2007-2009".
  25. ^ Granger, Anthony (30 October 2019). "Czech Republic: Jan Bors Steps Down as Head of Delegation". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  26. ^ Granger, Anthony (1 November 2019). "Czech Republic: Cyril Hirsch Announced as Head of Delegation". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  27. ^ Granger, Anthony (4 January 2021). "Czech Republic: Internal Song Selection Confirmed as New Head of Delegation Announced". Eurovoix. Retrieved 4 January 2021.
  28. ^ Granger, Anthony (4 May 2019). "Czech Republic: Libor Boucek Announced as Commentator". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 6 December 2019.

External links

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