Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

North Macedonia (officially under the provisional appellation "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", abbreviated "FYR Macedonia") participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Lost and Found" written by Bojan Trajkovski and Darko Dimitrov. The song was performed by Eye Cue, who were internally selected by the Macedonian broadcaster Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) to represent the nation at the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal.

Eurovision Song Contest 2018
Country Macedonia
National selection
Selection processInternal Selection
Selection date(s)Artist: 13 February 2018
Song: 11 March 2018
Selected entrantEye Cue
Selected song"Lost and Found"
Selected songwriter(s)
Finals performance
Semi-final resultFailed to qualify (18th, 24 points)
Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2017 • 2018 • 2019►

Background
Main article: North Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2018 contest, Macedonia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest seventeen times since its first entry in 1998.[1] The nation's best result in the contest to this point was twelfth, which it achieved in 2006 with the song "Ninanajna" performed by Elena Risteska. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004, Macedonia had featured in only five finals. In 2017, Jana Burčeska failed to bring the country to the final with her song "Dance Alone", that marked the nation's fifth failure in a row.

Before Eurovision

Internal selection

On 26 January 2018, Macedonian Radio Television (MRT) launched a call to submissions to find their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.[2] Out of the 382 submitted entries, a special jury selected Eye Cue and their song "Lost and Found" to represent Macedonia in Lisbon. Eye Cue was revealed as Macedonia's representatives on 13 February 2018.[3] The song and its music video was revealed on 11 March 2018.

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 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. Macedonia 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.[4]

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. Macedonia was set to perform in position 11, following the entry from Bulgaria and preceding the entry from Croatia.[5]

Semi-final

Macedonia performed eleventh in the first semi-final, opening the second half of the show. The followed Bulgaria and preceded Croatia. At the end of the night, Macedonia was not one of the ten countries announced as qualifying for the grand final, their sixth non-qualification since 2013. It was later revealed that Macedonia placed eighteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 24 points: 6 points from the televoting and 18 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 Macedonia
Points awarded to Macedonia (Semi-final 1)
Televote
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
Jury
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

Points awarded by Macedonia

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Macedonian jury: [6]

  • Miodrag Vrčakovski – Chairperson – songwriter, radio journalist
  • Ile Spasev – music teacher, composer, music producer
  • Ana Pandevska – composer
  • Kristijan Gabroski – composer, music producer
  • Stefanija Leškova Zelenovska – musicologyst, music journalist
Split voting results from Macedonia (Semi-final 1)
Draw Country Jury Televote
I. Spasev A. Pandevska M. Vrčakovski K. Gabroski S. L. Zelenovska Average Rank Points Rank Points
01 Azerbaijan5111544765
02 Iceland9610989217
03 Albania24711210112
04 Belgium13161415161715
05 Czech Republic421273856
06 Lithuania16131811141616
07 Israel882636583
08 Belarus17181710111314
09 Estonia695767412
10 Bulgaria1333211238
11 Macedonia
12 Croatia3564556210
13 Austria14171516171811
14 Greece1512818181174
15 Finland11151214131292
16 Armenia12111617151518
17  Switzerland181413131214101
18 Ireland1010912910113
19 Cyprus7748108347
Split voting results from Macedonia (final)
Draw Country Jury Televote
I. Spasev A. Pandevska M. Vrčakovski K. Gabroski S. L. Zelenovska Average Rank Points Rank Points
01 Ukraine13201318222474
02 Spain15241617232519
03 Slovenia14387199292
04 Lithuania2472621132225
05 Austria161617951714
06 Estonia5166611217
07 Norway181975171513
08 Portugal26232020212626
09 United Kingdom2514181911322
10 Serbia1412131038210
11 Germany810192148311
12 Albania661031256112
13 France1991126162116
14 Czech Republic201111477465
15 Denmark22182315112312
16 Australia3221510201415
17 Finland21591626520
18 Bulgaria178525151647
19 Moldova2326342611101
20 Sweden215141134718
21 Hungary1121218252023
22 Israel7122242410183
23 Netherlands1013241281824
24 Ireland925252391921
25 Cyprus42422421038
26 Italy1217221181256
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gollark: Rust is, of course, right, with its strings which are just vectors of bytes with extra invariants.
gollark: And can't append to strings above a certain length.
gollark: You have to have different versions of every string manipulation function.

References
  1. "F.Y.R. Macedonia". EBU. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  2. Dave Jordan (26 January 2018). "Macedonian TV looks to the world for 2018 Eurovision entry". EBU. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  3. Dave Jordan (13 February 2018). "It's Eye Cue for F.Y.R. Macedonia in 2018!". EBU. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  4. Jordan, Paul (29 January 2018). "Which countries will perform in which Semi-Final at Eurovision 2018?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
  5. "Running order for Eurovision 2018 Semi-Finals revealed". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 3 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  6. Groot, Evert (30 April 2018). "Exclusive: They are the expert jurors for Eurovision 2018". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
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