Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Spain participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. Televisión Española chose its entry through a contest called Eurovisión 2009: El retorno, similar to Salvemos Eurovisión, which selected the 2008 entry. Soraya was selected on 28 February 2009 to represent Spain at Eurovision with the song "La noche es para mí".
Before Eurovision
''Eurovisión 2009: El retorno''
Eurovisión 2009: El retorno was the competition that selected Spain's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009.Format
The competition featured thirty songs. All songs competed throughout four live shows during a two-week period: three semi-finals on 14, 21 and 28 February 2009 and the final on 28 February 2009. All shows took place at the Casino l'Aliança del Poblenou Theatre in Barcelona, and were hosted by singer Alaska and sports reporter Miguel Serrano.The competition featured thirty songs selected through an online vote, held between 19 December 2008 and 20 January 2009. Each semi-final featured ten songs from which four advanced to the final. Results during the semi-finals and the final were determined by a combination of the votes from a five-member jury panel and televoting. One of the five jury members were selected by the public.
Initially, the final was planned to take place on 7 March 2009, with a Second Chance round being held before the final. Three songs from each semi-final would have directly for the final, and the fourth placed song would qualified for the Second Chance round. In the Second Chance round, televoting would have determined the final qualifiers. However, after the second semi-final, TVE decided to remove the Second Chance round and to jointly hold the third semi-final and the final. As a result, the top four songs from each semi-final qualified directly for the final instead. TVE claimed that the schedule was changed to aid the winning artist in preparing their performance, choreography and preview video for Eurovision, but the Spanish media assumed the decision was taken due to the low ratings the shows were getting.
Online vote
TVE opened the submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries from 24 November 2008 until 17 December 2008 through a MySpace platform. More than 978 songs were uploaded to the platform, but only 455 were accepted by TVE because the rest of them did not qualify according to the rules. 10 categories were then allocated to all 455 eligible entries. The ten categories and the number of songs competing were:- Pop/Rock - 188
- Ballad - 37
- Metal - 12
- Electronic - 63
- Latin - 29
- Hip Hop - 9
- Indie - 18
- Flamenco - 10
- R&B - 19
- Other - 45
Among the artists who had submitted songs to participate and didn't qualify to the televised rounds included some recognizable names like Tontxu and Un Pingüino en mi Ascensor as well as acts that had already participated in past Spanish pre-selections, like Coral, Rebeca, Bizarre, Innata or Arkaitz. Past participants were chosen for the national final are Santa Fe, Mirela, Yulia and Dulce. Anabel Conde, who finished second in the Eurovision Song Contest 1995 representing Spain, joined Roel's bid and provided the backing vocals for him in the second semi-final.
Auditions
From the remaining 30 songs that failed to qualify from the online vote, ten additional entries were chosen by an "expert" jury to advance to the national final via an auditions round which took place at the Casino l'Aliança del Poblenou in Barcelona on 31 January 2009, reported the auditions live on TVE's official website.Initially, Sin Tanto and Depresión Post-Parto had the right to participate in the auditions, but they withdrew from the competition and were replaced by Antonio Moreno Bermúdez and José Antonio Santiago Beltrán respectively.
Shows
Semi-final 1
The first semi-final took place on 14 February 2009. During the show, Víctor Escudero, one of the five candidates shortlisted in the online vote to become the fifth jury member, was chosen by the four jury members and televoting. Three songs qualified for the final based on the combination of votes from the five-member jury panel and televoting, which were Melody y Los Vivancos, La La Love You and Noelia Cano. Gran Baobab was supposed to compete in the Second Chance round, but they also qualified for the final after the Second Chance round being scrapped by TVE, as announced after the second semi-final.Due to technical difficulties in the performance, Melody y Los Vivancos was allowed to restart their performance. However, Los Vivancos later announced their withdrawal from the competition due to the lack of technical and artistic resources in the production of the show, and because their bid was being promoted as Melody even though it was a joint bid. Melody later announced that she would go on in the competition with some other dancers.
Guest performers included Tequila and Fangoria. Tequila opened the show performing the 1974 Eurovision winner "Waterloo", and later they sang their hit "Salta". Fangoria performed their latest single "Más es más".
Semi-final 2
The second semi-final took place on 21 February 2009. Three songs qualified for the final based on the combination of votes from the five-member jury panel and televoting, which were Soraya, Virginia and Jorge González. Salva Ortega was supposed to compete in the Second Chance round, but he also qualified for the final after the Second Chance round being scrapped by TVE, as announced after the second semi-final.Guest performers included Rosario Flores and Nena Daconte. Rosario opened the show with the 1970 Eurovision Spanish entry "Gwendolyne", and later she performed "No dudaría". Nena Daconte performed the 1965 Eurovision winning song "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" and closed the show with their hit single "Tenía tanto que darte".
After the criticism received for the production of the first semi-final, TVE enlarged the stage and improved the sound and lighting of the venue.
Semi-final 3
The third semi-final took place on 28 February 2009. Four songs qualified for the final based on the combination of votes from the five-member jury panel and televoting, which were Santa Fe, Mirela, Isi and Julia Bermejo.Final
The final took place on 28 February 2009, jointly with the third semi-final. The twelve songs that qualified from the previous three semi-finals competed, and the winner was determined based on the combination of votes from the five-member jury panel and televoting. At the end of voting, there was tie for the first place, with Melody winning the jury vote and Soraya winning the televote. As the results of the televoting took precedence. Soraya was therefore declared the winner.Guest performers included Carlos Baute, Chipper and Nancys Rubias. They performed the Israeli Eurovision winning entries "A-Ba-Ni-Bi", "Hallelujah" and "Diva".
Controversy
In spite of the changes introduced by TVE, the security of the online voting process was put into question once again. On 21 December 2008, the score of the songs that were leading most of the categories, including the songs with the most votes overall, was briefly reduced to zero on the official website's ranking due to technical problems. On 24 December 2008, TVE announced that votes would be deducted from entries due to fraudulent voting. 4,300 votes were removed from seven entries online, most of which came from the Hip Hop group.At Eurovision
Spain automatically pre-qualified for the final of the contest as one of the "Big Four". Following a draw in Moscow, Soraya performed last, 25th in the running order. Soraya was accompanied on stage by three female backing vocalists and two male dancers. A new Eurovision version of the song "La noche es para mí" was revealed at the contest. It would finish 24th, scoring 23 points.Radio presenter Joaquín Guzmán commentated the event for TVE for the first time. TV journalist Iñaki del Moral was the Spanish spokesperson. José Luis Uribarri, historical commentator of the event, was the head of the jury.
Controversies
Due to its commitments to broadcast the Madrid Open tennis tournament, Spain's public broadcaster Televisión Española broadcast the 2009 Contest second semi-final on a tape delay on its second channel TVE2 approximately 66 minutes after the show began in Moscow, and used a backup jury rather than televoting to decide its votes. Due to this rule violation, it was announced that Spain would eventually face sanctions, although these sanctions would not affect its participation in Moscow. Due to another conflict of interest, Spain had already switched to broadcast the second semi-final rather than the first, which also led to criticisms from the delegations of Andorra and Portugal, which stated that they would have experienced an advantage from a Spanish vote due to their similar cultures.The day after the semifinal, El Mundo speculated that this delay may have been done on purpose in order to prevent Spain from winning and hosting the contest, speculating that RTVE may not actually want to host the contest if Spain were to win. A statement in ABC had cited technical difficulties for the delay.