Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018


Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The Greek national broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation announced that they will use a national final in order to find the Greek representative in Lisbon, after two consecutive years of internal selection. This decision was later reversed when all but one of the competing finalists' record labels were unable to provide a guarantee of the €20,000 fee requested by ERT, and thus "Oniro mou" sung by Gianna Terzi was internally selected.

Background

Prior to the 2017 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-seven times since their debut in. The nation has won the contest on one occasion in with the song "My Number One" performed by Helena Paparizou. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the, Greece has managed to thus far qualify to the final with each of their entries. Between 2004 and 2011, the nation achieved eight consecutive top ten placements in the final. To this point, Greece in with Argo's "Utopian Land" failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, being absent from the final for the first time since 2000. This was Greece's worst result at the contest. However, Greece returned to the final in with Demy's song "This Is Love", finishing in 19th place.
The Greek national broadcaster, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ERT had been in charge of Greece's participation in the contest since their debut in 1974 until 2013 when the broadcaster was shut down by a government directive and replaced with the interim Dimosia Tileorasi and then later by the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television broadcaster. Following the January 2015 Greek legislative election, a draft proposal was initiated to reinstate ERT as the public Greek broadcaster. On 28 April 2015, the draft was approved and signed into law by the Hellenic Parliament, resulting in the renaming of NERIT to ERT; ERT began broadcasting once again on 11 June 2015. ERT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 28 August 2015. The Greek broadcaster has used various methods to select the Greek entry in the past, such as internal selections and televised national finals to choose the performer, song or both to compete at Eurovision. Since 2010, the Greek entry has been selected via a national final that featured a competition among several artists and songs with the votes of an expert jury and a public televote deciding the Greek Eurovision entry.

Before Eurovision

ERT announced on 1 October 2017 that the representative of the country would be chosen through a national final, after two consecutive years of internal selection. On 4 October 2017, ERT sent a letter to leading record labels regarding its national final for Eurovision 2018. Requesting songs, the letter makes clear that lyrics ought to be ‘exclusively’ in Greek and that the entries should preferably have a native sound, too. The deadline to receive the entries was the 20 October. However, ERT announced that the deadline would be extended for one week, with the new deadline being the 27 October.
The national broadcaster announced the artistic committee that will evaluate the songs to be submitted for the Greek final. The eight judges are:
By 27 October 2017, twenty artists had confirmed their intention to participate in the Greek final. On 8 November 2017, it was unofficially reported by Greek media that the artistic committee had selected five artists/bands to go through to the next round, which doesn't necessarily mean that they will compete in the Greek national selection, since the respective record labels have to assure ERT that in case their song wins the ticket to Lisbon, they will exclusively finance the Greek entry. The five acts that reportedly got through to the next round are highlighted in orange:
ArtistLabelSong Title 'Music / Lyrics Source
Areti KetimeThe Spicy Effect"Min ksehnas ton ilio" 'Dimitris Karras, Nancy Auradopoulos
Panagiotis Tsakalakos & Tania BreazouFeelgood Records"Anepanalipti" TBA
Vasiliki StefanouPolymusic"Gia Sena" Giorgos Kiriakou, Magda Varoucha
Stereo Soul feat. DJ KonceptHeaven Music"Boro" DJ Koncept
Christina SaltiPanik Records"To S'agapo" TBA
Giannis MoraitisVinilio Music"Oi polloi eimaste ena" 'Andreas Lambrou
Dimitris KiklisVinilio Music"Odos agapis" 'Andreas Lambrou
ChorostalitesSpider Music"Apo tin Thraki eos tin Kriti" 'Vasilis Messaritakis
Duo FinaRecords On Top"Idio tempo" 'Yiannis Finas, Takis Finas
Tony VlahosSpider Music"Baila jazz" 'Antonis Karatzikis, Maria Athini, Tony Vlachos
Kyriaki Derebei feat. LAVAFinalTouch"Kokkina feggaria" 'MadFeel, LAVA
Vaggelis PanatosE&E Music Production"Mesogeios" 'Vaggelis Panatos, Elena Maniati
Yianna TerziPanik Records"Oniro mou" 'Aris Kalimeris, Dimitris Stamatiou, Yianna Terzi, Mihalis Papathanasiou
DechoMinos EMI"Idia Zali" 'Yiannis Vayionas, Panos Dekoulakos
Tania BreazouFeelgood Records"Kati" 'TBA
INKHeaven Music"Thimame" 'INK, Christos Tsantalis, Kostas Apostolopoulos, Savas Karampalasis
Yiannis DimitrasMirror Music"Ta paidia tis Athinas" 'Yiannis Dimitras
Dimitris LioliosSatellite Records"Ta Monopatia" 'TBA
Nikos BaibosSatellite Records"Efhi Kai Katara" 'TBA
Foteini VasilakiMusic Art Lab"Pes Pos M'agapas" TBA

Ellinikós Telikós 2018

The final would be held on 22 February 2018 while the songs will have been revealed in 12th of the same month. The five artists selected by the artistic committee on 7 November 2017. The winner will be selected through 100% televoting. On 14 February 2018, it was revealed that the final will be hosted by Panagiotis Kountouras and Nikos Pitanios.
On 15 February, the Greek national final was cancelled. Both Areti Ketime and Chorostalites were disqualified. A day later, ERT confirmed that the only remaining act, Yianna Terzi would represent Greece at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.

Final

Notes

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 29 January 2018, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Greece was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 8 May 2018, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.
Once all the competing songs for the 2018 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Greece was set to perform in position 14, following the entry from Austria and preceding the entry from Finland.
The two semi-finals and the final were televised in Greece on ERT1, ERT HD and ERT World as well as broadcast via radio on ERA 2 and Voice of Greece with commentary by Alexandros Lizardos and Daphne Skalioni.

Semi-final

Greece performed fourteenth in the first semi-final, following Austria and preceding Finland. At the end of the night, Greece was not one of the ten countries announced as qualifying for the grand final, making it their second non-qualification since 2016. It was later revealed that Greece placed fourteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 81 points: 53 points from the televoting and 28 points from the juries.

Voting

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1–8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member, as well as the nation's televoting results, were released shortly after the grand final.

Points awarded to Greece

Points awarded by Greece

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Greek jury: