Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Belarus participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Belarusian broadcaster National State Television and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus (BTRC) organised a national final in order to select the Belarusian entry for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Eurovision Song Contest 2019
Country	Belarus
National selection
Selection process	Nationalny Otbor
Selection date(s)	7 March 2019
Selected entrant	ZENA
Selected song	"Like It"
Selected songwriter(s)	Yulia Kireeva Viktor Drobysh Zinaida Kupriyanovich
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (10th, 122 points)
Final result	24th, 31 points
Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2018 • 2019 • 2020►

Background

Main article: Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2019 Contest, Belarus had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifteen times since its first entry in 2004.[1] The nation's best placing in the contest was sixth, which it achieved in 2007 with the song "Work Your Magic" performed by Dmitry Koldun. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004, Belarus had managed to qualify to the final five times. In 2017, Belarus managed to qualify to the final with the song "Historyja majho žyccia (Story of My Life)" performed by Naviband. In 2018, Belarus failed to qualify to the final with the song "Forever" performed by Alekseev ending in the 16th place with 65 points.

The Belarusian national broadcaster, National State Television and Radio Company of the Republic of Belarus (BTRC), broadcasts the event within Belarus and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. The broadcaster has used both internal selections and national finals to select the Belarusian entry for Eurovision in the past. Since 2012, BTRC has organised a national final in order to choose Belarus' entry, a selection procedure that will continue for their 2019 entry.[2]

Before Eurovision

Nationalny Otbor

The Belarusian national final took place on 7 March 2019. Ten songs participated in the competition and the winner was selected exclusively by the votes of a seven-member jury. The show was broadcast on Belarus 1, Belarus 24 and Radius FM as well as online via the broadcaster's official website tvr.by.

Competing entries

On the 1 February 2019, it was announced that 113 songs had been submitted for the national final. 73 participating songs were performed during an audition on 4 February 2019.[3] From this, the expert jury chose the 10 finalists that would compete in the televised national final.

Auditions – 4 February 2019
Draw	Artist	Song
Participant #1 did not appear
2	Pavel Negozhin & Alyona	"Angel or Devil"
3	Sergey Malinovsky	"L.O.V.E."
Participant #4 did not appear
5	Mary Moon	"The Genius"
6	Mariah Gregory	"I Still Love You"
7	Egor Lutsenko & Lana Kot	"Intensity"
8	Katya Felitsa	"Santa Barbara"
9	Evgeny Dolich	"A Better You"
10	NastaSea	"Burn Down"
11	Brian Left	"Stronger"
Participant #12 did not appear
13	Ellina Graypel	"Happy Song"
Participant #14 did not appear
15	Michael Soul	"Humanize"
16	HEDS	"Loneliness"
17	Vladimir Arutyunyan	"Everything Will Be"
Participant #18 did not appear
19	Olga Balan	"Suflet Pustiu"
20	Pavel Lashenchuk	"Ya za mir na planete Zemlya"
21	PROvokatsiya	"Running Away from the Sun"
22	Eva Kogan	"Run"
Participant #23 did not appear
24	Daz Sampson & Nona	"Kinky Boots"
25	Alisa	"Ustala"
26	Angelika Pushnova	"Stop Breathing"
27	Julian Lesinski	"Affinity"
28	Tatyana Goroshko	"Make a Movie"
29	Moi NLO	"Effekt Mandely"
Participant #30 did not appear
31	Sebastian Roos	"Never Getting Close"
32	Artemiy Erokhin	"On My Own"
33	Carlos Costa	"Demonio"
34	NAPOLI	"Let It Go"
Participant #35 did not appear
36	KiM	"Strong"
Participants #37–38 did not appear
39	Lada Linkevich	"Ne tvoya"
40	Belle Morte	"My Legacy"
41	Assol Ambrozyak	"My Strength"
42	Alen Hit	"Sad Songs About Love"
Participant #43 did not appear
44	Tatyana Vaytovich	"Uletayu"
Participants #45–47 did not appear
48	Natalya Kudrina	"Nepobedimaya"
49	ZENA	"Like It"
Participant #50 did not appear
51	Julia Voice	"Number One"
Participants #52–53 did not appear
54	Alyona Gorbachova	"Can We Dream"
55	Mirea Cretulescu	"Brother"
56	YANN ZHANCHAK	"Memories"
57	Aura	"Čaravala"
58	Angelina Sapego	"What If"
59	Sirena	"I Picked You"
Participant #60 did not appear
61	Andrus Takindang	"Khvalya lyubovi"
62	Alove	"Come Alive"
63	Valeriya Dubitskaya	"Our Universe"
Participant #64 did not appear
65	Kod Lyubvi	"Be My Wolf"
66	S.Nova	"Angel Song"
67	KeySi	"No Love Lost"
68	SANCHI	"Invincible"
69	Ekaterina Sachivkina	"My Line"
Participants #70–71 did not appear
72	Diana Gromova	"Infinity"
73	PAULINN	"Anamaliya"
Participant #74 did not appear
75	Ekaterina Denis	"Whole World"
76	The Flowers of Florence	"Utopia"
77	Yulia Yukhnevich	"Slova"
78	Ilya Parshikov	"You Are My Prey"
Participants #79–80 did not appear
81	ULYANOOW	"Hurts"
82	Bidash	"Music Inside"
Participant #83 did not appear
84	BLGN ft. Mirex	"Champion"
Participant #85 did not appear
86	Stepan Gusak	"Tri minuty"
87	Oili	"Tony"
88	Soroka - Voroka	"Potato aka Bulba"
89	Aleksandra Gorbatenko	"Run to Me"
Participant #90 did not appear
91	OZER	"Hold On"
92	Viktor Lupasin	"Krutsi pedali I spyavai"
93	Aleksey Gross	"Stay"
94	Stanislav Gutnik	"So Lost"
Participant #95 did not appear
96	Yulia Glebova & Chas Speak	"Lepshy dzen"
Participants #97–98 did not appear
99	Anna Migura & Andrey Bykov	"Ne treba slou"
Participant #100 did not appear
101	Yellow Arc 6	"Take Me Back"
Participants #102–103 did not appear
104	Simvol	"Vremya prishlo"
105	Dmitry Gerasimchik	"Alfa I amega"
106	Ramirezzz	"Lyubov"
Participants #107–113 did not appear
Artists and/or songs that did not appear in the audition
—	Aelita Ang	"Dracula"
—	Alesya Boyarskikh	"Sexy B"
—	Angel Sofi	"Queen of Freedom"
—	Cassidi Civet	"Ba Vinci"
—	Cosmique	"Crazy For Love"
—	Ekaterina Kurochkina	"Blondinka"
—	Elena Krivitskaya	"How Can I Complain"
—	Evgeniy Eremin	"Miracle"
—	Happy Prince	"Wait For You"
—	Indira	"911"
—	Isida Wings	"Nibiru"
—	Klaudia Trzepizur	"Devil in Disguise"
—	Mihai Traistariu	"Baya"
—	Olesya Avdeeva	"Pust lyubov prokhodit storonoy"
—	Ruslan Letun	"Vremya"
—	Tony Myles	"Pick Me!!"

Artist	Song (English translation)	Composer(s)
Alyona Gorbachova	"Can We Dream"	Leonid Shyrin, Aleksey Shyrin
Aura	"Čaravala"	Evgeniy Oleynik
BLGN & Mirex	"Champion"	Sasha Balagan, Mirex Silva
Eva Kogan	"Run"	Leonid Shyrin, Natalia Tambovtseva
KeySi	"No Love Lost"	Dmitriy Fomich, Kseniya Fomich
Michael Soul	"Humanize"	Michael Soul, Yuliya Kolovertnykh, Andrey Katikov, Vladislav Pashkevich
NAPOLI	"Let It Go"	Aleksandra Tkach
PROvokatsiya	"Running Away from the Sun"	Kirill Good, Denis Yasuchenya
Sebastian Roos	"Never Getting Close"	Alberto Estebanez, Lars Carlsson, Björn Ledelius, Sebastian Roos
ZENA	"Like It"	Yulia Kireeva, Viktor Drobysh, Zinaida Kupriyanovich

Final

The final took place on 7 March 2019, hosted by Olga Ryzhikova and Teo. The winner was selected by a seven-member jury, who each awarded every song from 0 to 10 points.[4]

Final – 7 March 2019
Draw	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Michael Soul	"Humanize"	59	4
2	ZENA	"Like It"	69	1
3	Eva Kogan	"Run"	54	10
4	BLGN & Mirex	"Champion"	65	2
5	Sebastian Roos	"Never Getting Close"	62	3
6	Alyona Gorbachova	"Can We Dream"	59	4
7	PROvokatsiya	"Running Away from the Sun"	55	8
8	Aura	"Čaravala"	55	8
9	NAPOLI	"Let It Go"	58	7
10	KeySi	"No Love Lost"	59	4

Detailed Jury Votes
Draw	Song	Juror 1	Juror 2	Juror 3	Juror 4	Juror 5	Juror 6	Juror 7	Total
1	"Humanize"	9	8	7	8	9	9	9	59
2	"Like It"	9	10	10	10	10	10	10	69
3	"Run"	8	7	9	8	7	7	8	54
4	"Champion"	7	9	10	10	10	9	10	65
5	"Never Getting Close"	10	10	9	10	8	7	8	62
6	"Can We Dream"	9	7	9	9	8	8	9	59
7	"Running Away from the Sun"	7	8	8	8	8	7	9	55
8	"Čaravala"	8	8	8	7	8	8	8	55
9	"Let It Go"	9	9	8	9	7	7	9	58
10	"No Love Lost"	9	9	8	9	7	8	9	59

Promotion

ZENA made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Like It" as the Belarusian Eurovision entry. On 6 April, she performed during the Eurovision in Concert event at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, hosted by Cornald Maas and Marlayne, to over 4500 spectators.[5] ZENA also performed during the London Eurovision Party in London on 14 April at the Café de Paris venue, which was hosted by Nicki French and Paddy O'Connell.[6]

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) 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 (EBU) 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. Belarus was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.[7]

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. Belarus was set to perform in position 8, following the entry from Hungary and preceding the entry from Serbia.[8]

Semi-final

Belarus performed eighth in the first semi-final, following the entry from Hungary and preceding the entry from Serbia. At the end of the show, Belarus was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Belarus placed tenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 122 points: 44 points from the televoting and 78 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 will be released shortly after the grand final.[9]

Points awarded to Belarus

Points awarded to Belarus (Semi-final 1)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
			Georgia	Cyprus  Iceland
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Montenegro	Israel  Serbia	Czech Republic	Australia  Greece  Poland  Slovenia	Estonia
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Hungary	Estonia	Czech Republic  Slovenia	Greece  Spain	Portugal
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
	Belgium  France  Serbia	Georgia  Iceland		Israel  San Marino

Points awarded to Belarus (final)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
		Russia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Azerbaijan
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
		Hungary	Russia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
				Armenia  Azerbaijan  Estonia

Points awarded by Belarus

Semi-final 1 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Iceland  Estonia 10 points  Australia  Georgia 8 points  Slovenia  Australia 7 points  San Marino  Czech Republic 6 points  Estonia  Poland 5 points  Poland  Greece 4 points  Serbia  Cyprus 3 points  Czech Republic  San Marino 2 points  Portugal  Hungary 1 point  Georgia  Iceland

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Russia  Malta 10 points  Netherlands  North Macedonia 8 points  Norway  Cyprus 7 points  Iceland  Italy 6 points  Azerbaijan  Netherlands 5 points  Slovenia  Azerbaijan 4 points   Switzerland   Switzerland 3 points  Italy  Greece 2 points  Australia  Sweden 1 point  San Marino  Russia

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Belarussian jury:[9]

• Valeriy Prigun – Chairperson – singer
• Anastasiya Tikhanovitch – singer, producer
• Artsem Mikhalenka – singer, TV host
• Anzhela Mikulskaya – TV producer
• Olga Rizhikova – singer, TV host, songwriter

The Belarussian jury was fired after the first semi-final for partially revealing their results early and was not replaced by another jury.

The Belarussian "jury" vote for the final was an average of the jury votes of the other four countries in their semifinal drawing pot (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia; had Ukraine not withdrawn, their jury vote would also have been used in the calculation). Due to an error by tabulators Digame and Ernst & Young, the wrong jury vote was presented during the live broadcast - the bottom 10 countries in the aggregate were incorrectly awarded the Belarussian points, which appeared to give Israel their only jury points. Several days after the broadcast, the EBU corrected the voting (the table above reflects the correct jury vote).

Split voting results from Belarus (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		A. Tikhanovitch	A. Mikhalenka	V. Prigun	A. Mikulskaya	O. Rizhikova	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	5	10	7	6	5	7	4	13
02	Montenegro	12	11	11	14	15	13		16
03	Finland	13	15	16	15	16	16		15
04	Poland	10	3	5	5	4	5	6	6	5
05	Slovenia	15	12	14	13	10	14		3	8
06	Czech Republic	8	4	4	4	3	4	7	8	3
07	Hungary	4	14	9	9	9	9	2	11
08	Belarus
09	Serbia	9	13	13	12	13	12		7	4
10	Belgium	16	5	12	16	12	11		12
11	Georgia	1	9	2	2	2	2	10	10	1
12	Australia	7	1	3	3	7	3	8	2	10
13	Iceland	11	6	10	11	14	10	1	1	12
14	Estonia	6	2	1	1	1	1	12	5	6
15	Portugal	14	16	15	10	11	15		9	2
16	Greece	2	7	6	7	6	6	5	14
17	San Marino	3	8	8	8	8	8	3	4	7

Split voting results from Belarus (final)
Draw	Country	Jury						Televote
		Armenia	Azerbaijan	Georgia	Russia	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Malta	7	2	12	5	1	12
02	Albania	25	4	21	8	15
03	Czech Republic	8	14	1	21	12
04	Germany	17	22	16	24	24
05	Russia	6	1	26		11	1	1	12
06	Denmark	19	19	4	17	16
07	San Marino	22	13	25	6	20		10	1
08	North Macedonia	2	3	17	7	2	10
09	Sweden	1	15	9	18	9	2
10	Slovenia	11	7	7	20	13		6	5
11	Cyprus	14	8	5	3	3	8
12	Netherlands	5	16	3	14	5	6	2	10
13	Greece	24	5	11	2	8	3
14	Israel	15	21	24	25	26
15	Norway	12	18	23	19	23		3	8
16	United Kingdom	9	25	10	23	21
17	Iceland	21	11	20	9	18		4	7
18	Estonia	23	23	13	22	25
19	Belarus	13	8	7	4	10
20	Azerbaijan	26		2	1	6	5	5	6
21	France	13	24	6	13	14
22	Italy	3	6	14	11	4	7	8	3
23	Serbia	16	20	15	12	19
24	Switzerland	4	12	8	16	7	4	7	4
25	Australia	18	9	18	15	17		9	2
26	Spain	20	17	22	10	22

References

1. "Belarus Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
2. Granger, Anthony (30 January 2019). "Belarus: Eurovision 2018 participation confirmed". Eurovoix.com. Retrieved 5 February 2019.
3. "Belarus: Today: Belarus – Live Auditions Round". eurovoix.com. 4 February 2019. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
4. Herbert, Emily (5 February 2019). "Belarus: Eurovision National Final Running Order Revealed". Eurovoix.
5. "This was Eurovision in Concert 2019 in Amsterdam". Eurovision.tv. 6 April 2019.
6. "18 Eurovision 2019 acts to perform in London on Sunday 14 April". Eurovision.tv. 13 April 2019.
7. Jordan, Paul (28 January 2019). "Eurovision 2019: Which country takes part in which Semi-Final?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
8. "Exclusive: This is the Eurovision 2019 Semi-Final running order!". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
9. Groot, Evert (30 April 2019). "Exclusive: They are the judges who will vote in Eurovision 2019!". Eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2019.