Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019


Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Greek national broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation announced that they will have an internal selection. Katerine Duska was selected internally to represent Greece at the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel with the song "Better Love" written by herself, Leon of Athens, David Sneddon and Phil Cook.

Background

Prior to the 2018 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-eight 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". In the 2018 contest, Greece failed to qualify for the second time with Yianna Terzi and the song "Oniro mou" finishing 14th in the semi-final.
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

Internal selection

On January, the Greek broadcaster ERT announced its provisional plans on Eurovision 2019, declaring that a national final show would not be held this year. Later on January, the channel revealed the names of the people who would consist the six-members jury panel which would be involved in the artist’s selection. The jury consisted of:
On 14 February 2019, ERT announced Katerine Duska as the Greek representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The song was released on 6 March 2019.

Promotion

Katerine Duska made several appearances across Europe to promote "Better Love" as the Greek Eurovision entry. She performed at Eurovision in Concert on 6 April 2019 at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, hosted by Cornald Maas and Marlayne, to over 4500 spectators, as well as the Eurovision Pre-Party Madrid on 20 April.

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 28 January 2019, 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 14 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.
Once all the competing songs for the 2019 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 16, following the entry from Portugal and preceding the entry from San Marino.

Semi-final

Greece performed sixteenth in the first semi-final, following Portugal and preceding San Marino. At the end of the show, Greece was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Greece placed fifth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 185 points: 54 points from the televoting and 131 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: