Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017
Romania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 after having been forced to take a one-year break in 2016 when they got disqualified. The country was represented with the song "Yodel It!" written by Mihai Alexandru and Alexandra Niculae. The song is performed by Ilinca and Alex Florea. The nation's broadcaster, Televiziunea Română, organised the Selecția Națională 2017, a preselection show, in order to select the Romanian entry for the 2017 contest held in Kiev, Ukraine. "Yodel It!" performed by Ilinca and Alex Florea emerged as the winner after gaining the most votes from the televoting.
Background
Prior to the 2017 Contest, Romania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest seventeen times since its first entry in 1994. Its highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been third place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 2005 with the song "Let Me Try" performed by Luminița Anghel and Sistem and in 2010 with the song "Playing with Fire" performed by Paula Seling and Ovi. To this point, Romania has qualified to the final on every occasion that they participated since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004. In 2015, "De la capăt" by band Voltaj placed 15th in the final. In 2016, their entry, "Moment of Silence" by Ovidiu Anton, was forcibly withdrawn from competition shortly before the contest due to repeated non-payment of debts by Televiziunea Română to the EBU, though it remained on the official album.Before Eurovision
''Selecția Națională 2017''
Selecția Națională 2017 was the national selection organised by TVR in order to select Romania's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. The competition consisted of two shows: a semi-final featuring fifteen songs and a final featuring ten songs to be held on 26 February 2017 and 5 March 2017, respectively.Competing entries
TVR opened a submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries between 20 December 2016 and 22 January 2017. A total of 84 entries were received, all of which would get to participate in the televised audition stage. These auditions were held on the 27th, 28th and 29 January and broadcast on a number of Romanian TV channels between February 5 and 11. From these songs, 15 songs qualified to the semi-final held on February 26, where a jury determined which 10 songs would qualify for the final held on March the 5th. The winner was then determined by 100% televoting. On 26 January 2017, TVR announced that out of the 84 entries that had been submitted, only 72 would participate in the first stage of the national selection. Later, the entry "I Know" was withdrawn from the competition by its singer Lora. The 15 competing entries were revealed on 12 February 2017.| Artist | Song | Music / Lyrics |
| Alexandra Crăescu | "Hope" | Carlos Manuel De Abreu Fernandes |
| Ana-Maria Mirică | "Spune-mi tu" | Liviu Elekes, Roxana Elekes |
| Cristina Vasiu | "Set the Skies on Fire" | Jonas Thander, Calle Kindbom, Tony Sánchez-Ohlsson |
| D-lema | "Adventure" | Alex Luft, Denisa Demian |
| Eduard Santha | "Wild Child" | Eduard Santha, Marius Alexandru Pop |
| Elizé & No Stress | "Fără bariere" | Vladimir Pocorschi, Eliza Manda |
| Ilinca feat. Alex Florea | "Yodel It!" | Mihai Alexandru, Alexandra Niculae |
| Instinct | "Petale" | Daniel Alexandrescu, Vlad Alecu, Theea Eliza Miculescu |
| Maxim feat. Nicolae Voiculeț | "Adu-ți aminte" | Adrian Sînă, Nicolae Voiculeț, Anca Cojocaru, Andrei Vitan |
| MIHAI | "I Won't Surrender" | Mihai Trăistariu, Michael James Down, Primož Poglajen, Niklas Hast |
| Ramona Nerra | "Save Me" | Ramona Nerra, Terri Bjerre, Toddi Reed |
| Tavi Colen & Emma | "We Own the Night" | Anastasia Sandu, Cătălin Tuță-Popescu |
| Tudor Turcu | "Limitless" | Bogdan Tomoșoiu, Tudor Turcu, Marius Marin |
| Xandra | "Walk On By" | Jonas Gladnikoff, Will Taylor |
| Zanga | "Două sticle" | Alexandra Penciu |
Semi-final
The semi-final took place on 26 February 2017, at Studioul Pangratti, in Bucharest, and was hosted by Iuliana Tudor and Dan Helciug, while Ioana Voicu was the greenroom correspondent. The jury eliminated five of the semi-finalists; the other 10 went on to the final. The highlighted semi-finalists qualified for the final.Final
The final took place on 5 March 2017, at Studioul Pangratti, in Bucharest, and was hosted by Iuliana Tudor and Dan Helciug, while Ioana Voicu was the greenroom correspondent. The winner was determined solely by the public vote.Guest performers for the final included Manel Navarro, SunStroke Project and Timebelle along with ABBA tribute band Arrival. "Yodel It!" performed by Ilinca and Alex Florea emerged as the winner after gaining the most votes from the televoting.
| Order | Artist | Song | Televote | Place |
| 1 | Ana-Maria Mirică | "Spune-mi tu" | 913 | 10 |
| 2 | Ilinca feat. Alex Florea | "Yodel It!" | 10,377 | 1 |
| 3 | Eduard Santha | "Wild Child" | 1,331 | 8 |
| 4 | Xandra | "Walk On By" | 2,556 | 5 |
| 5 | MIHAI | "I Won't Surrender" | 5,201 | 2 |
| 6 | Maxim feat. Nicolae Voiculeț | "Adu-ți aminte" | 2,801 | 4 |
| 7 | Tavi Colen & Emma | "We Own the Night" | 1,128 | 9 |
| 8 | Instinct | "Petale" | 3,063 | 3 |
| 9 | Ramona Nerra | "Save Me" | 2,102 | 7 |
| 10 | Cristina Vasiu | "Set the Skies on Fire" | 2,222 | 6 |
Promotion
Ilinca and Alex Florea made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Yodel It!" as the Romanian Eurovision entry. On 2 April, they performed during the London Eurovision Party, which was held at the Café de Paris venue in London, United Kingdom and hosted by Nicki French. Between 3 and 6 April, they took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel where he performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Ha'teatron venue. On 8 April, they performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Selma Björnsdóttir. On 15 April, they performed during the Eurovision Spain Pre-Party, which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain.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 31 January 2017, 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. Romania was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 11 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.Once all the competing songs for the 2017 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. Originally, Romania was set to perform in position 6, following the entry from Malta and before the entry from the Netherlands. However, following Russia's withdrawal from the contest on 13 April and subsequent removal from the running order of the second semi-final, Romania's performing position shifted to 5.
Semi-final
The singers' concept for their stage show was revealed during their first rehearsal. It commences with a number of large toy soldiers drumming in the background, whereon further colorful imagery is displayed during the rest of the performance, including "colourful butterflies, blue clouds, white roses, blue musical notes and images flying all over the place" along with the letters YODEL IT in different tones; the singers are performing in a yellow circle. At the end of the performance, Florea appears on a glittery cannon originally planned to shoot out colorful objects—which according to the singer would have represented an "explosion of love and happiness"—following which a second cannon is introduced and is also displayed in the background. Florea's brother provided backing vocals. It was later revealed that Romania placed sixth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 174 points: 148 points from the televoting and 26 points from the juries.Points awarded to Romania
Points awarded by Romania
Jury members
The following five members comprised the Romanian jury:- Luminița Anghel – Chairperson – artist, represented Romania in the 2005 contest
- Mihai Trăistariu – singer, producer, composer, represented Romania in the 2006 contest
- Octavian Călugăru – artist
- Paula Seling – singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, composer, radio DJ, TV personality, represented in the 2010 and 2014 contests along with Ovi
- Cezar Ouatu – pop-opera singer, represented Romania in the 2013 contest
Split voting results