Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest

Spain has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 59 times since making its debut in 1961, where they finished ninth. Since 1999, Spain has been one of the "Big Five", along with France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, who are automatically allowed to participate in the final because they are the five biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union. Spain has competed in the contest continuously since the country's debut in 1961. The only country with a longer run of uninterrupted Eurovision appearances is the United Kingdom, ever-present since 1959.

Spain
Member station	Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE)
National selection events	National final 1961–1962 1964–1965 1969–1971 1976 2000–2001 2005 2007–2011 2012-2013 (song) 2014 2016–2017 Operación Triunfo 2002–2004 2018–2019 Internal selection 1963 1966–1968 1972–1975 1977–1999 2006 2012–2013 (artist) 2015 2020–2021
Participation summary
Appearances	59
First appearance	1961
Best result	1st: 1968, 1969
Nul points	1962, 1965, 1983
External links
TVE page
Spain's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Spain has won the contest twice, first in 1968 with the song "La, la, la" sung by Massiel and again in 1969, when Salomé's "Vivo cantando" was involved in a four-way tie with France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The 1969 contest in Madrid is the only time Spain has hosted the event, since lots were drawn after 1969's four-way tie and the 1970 contest was hosted by the Netherlands. Spain has also finished second in the contest four times, with Karina in 1971, Mocedades in 1973, Betty Missiego in 1979 and Anabel Conde in 1995, and third in 1984 with Bravo. The country finished last with "Nul points" three times: in 1962, 1965 and 1983, and also finished last in 1999 and 2017.

Since 2005, Spain have only twice reached the top 10, with both Pastora Soler (2012) and Ruth Lorenzo (2014) finishing 10th, and have now failed to reach the top 20 in 10 of the last 15 contests, including for five consecutive years (2015–19). As of 2019, Spain is the current participating country with longest active victory drought, with a total of 50 years.

Selection process

Spain has regularly changed the selection process used in order to find the country's entry for the contest, either a national final or internal selection (sometimes a combination of both formats) has been held by the broadcaster at the time. Between 1977 and 1999, Spain's entries were selected internally by TVE. Before that, internal selections and national contests, like Pasaporte a Dublín (Passport to Dublin) in 1971, were alternated.[1]

From 2000, Spain has used various selection formats with different results. In 2000 and 2001, TVE organised a national final called Eurocanción (Eurosong), where the Spanish representative was selected for the contest.[2] From 2002 to 2004, the reality television talent competition Operación Triunfo (the Spanish version of Star Academy) was used to select the entry, a format that renewed the Spanish audience's interest in the contest[3] and brought three top 10 results in a row, until TVE decided not to host any further editions of the series. In 2005, the national final Eurovisión 2005: Elige nuestra canción (Eurovision 2005: Choose Our Song) was organised, where the audience chose their favourite song among a pre-selection made by TVE of unknown artists submitted to them by record labels. The result in the Eurovision final was not good and for 2006, the selection was made internally for the first time since 1999, with a similar result. In 2007, Spain's entry was decided through the Misión Eurovisión 2007 show, with a disappointing result once again.

From 2008 to 2010, the Internet was the key element of the competitions used by TVE to select the Spanish entry. In 2008, the social networking website MySpace was involved in the national final Salvemos Eurovisión (Let's Save Eurovision). A website was created to make it possible for anyone to upload a song and proceed to a televised final if chosen by online voters or an expert jury. The result improved a little, but not much; nevertheless the interest of the Spanish audience was revived again.[3] For 2009, MySpace was still involved in the selection process Eurovisión 2009: El retorno (Eurovision 2009: The Return), although some changes were introduced in the format.[4] The result was the worst in the 2000s (decade): 24th place. In 2010, a similar format, Eurovisión: Destino Oslo, selected the Spanish entry, with the best result since 2004 (15th).[5]

In 2011, Internet voting was scrapped from the new selection method Destino Eurovisión. After a further disappointing result (23rd), for 2012, TVE decided to approach an established act, Pastora Soler, and organise a national final to select her song.[6] A top ten result was achieved for the first time since 2004. The same procedure was repeated in 2013, with El Sueño de Morfeo as the established act, which turned out one of the most disappointing results (25th out of 26 entries) in the country's Eurovision history; some critics, however, blamed a less-than-stellar performance of an otherwise solid song.[7] In 2014, TVE decided to return to a multi-artist national final procedure, called Mira quién va a Eurovisión (Look who's going to Eurovision); five artists were invited to participate by TVE. A top ten result was achieved for the second time in three years.

In 2015, for the first time since 2006, both the artist, Edurne, and the song were selected internally by TVE. On 18 December 2015, TVE announced that it would organise a national final in order to select the Spanish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. Six acts competed in the national final named Objetivo Eurovisión, and Barei won the selection process. The same format was used in 2017, and Manel Navarro won the selection process; it turned out Spain's first last-place result since 1999.

In 2017, TVE commissioned a new season of Operación Triunfo, which returned to TVE after 13 years, and the series served for the fourth time (after 2002, 2003 and 2004) as the platform to select the Spanish entry for the 2018 contest.[8][9] The result was disappointing (23rd out of 26 entries), but the 2018 Eurovision final was the most-watched in Spain since 2008.[10] A further season of the talent show chose the Spanish entry for the 2019 contest with another disappointing result (22nd out of 26 entries).[11]

For the 2020 contest, TVE will select the Spanish entry internally.[12]

Spain and the "Big Five"

Since 1999, four particular countries have automatically qualified for the Eurovision final, regardless of their positions on the scoreboard in previous Contests.[13] They earned this special status by being the four biggest financial contributors to the EBU. These countries are the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain. Due to their untouchable status in the Contest, these countries became known as the "Big Four". Italy returned to the contest in 2011, thus becoming part of a "Big Five".[14] Despite everything, Spain with its overall success is the weakest participant of the Big-5.

Interrupted performances

Only three times in the contest's history has a non-winning entry been allowed to perform again, and in two of these instances, the entries in question were Spanish representatives (the other one being the Italian entry in 1958, "Nel blu dipinto di blu" by Domenico Modugno). The first time this happened to a Spanish representative was in the 1990 contest in Zagreb, when Azúcar Moreno opened the contest with the song "Bandido." The orchestra and the recorded playback began the song out of sync, which caused the singers to miss their cue. The singers left the stage after a few seconds, and no explanation was given at the time. After a few uneasy moments, the music began correctly and the song was performed in full. Azúcar Moreno and "Bandido" went on to place fifth in the final vote tally, though the juries at the time actually awarded their points after watching the dress rehearsal performances, so the restart did not affect Spain's overall result either positively or negatively.

Twenty years later, at the 2010 contest in Oslo, Spain was drawn to perform second in the running order, and singer Daniel Diges's performance of "Algo pequeñito" was disturbed by notorious Catalan pitch invader Jimmy Jump. However, Diges performed the song in full, despite the invader's intrusion and subsequent removal from the stage by security personnel, receiving warm applause for continuing from the spectators at the Telenor Arena. After the exhibition of Serbia, co-presenter Nadia Hasnaoui announced that, according to the rules, Diges would be given a second chance once all the remaining countries had performed. Nonetheless, the juries ranked the dress-rehearsal performance of "Algo pequeñito" 20th out of 25 with 43 points, whereas the televoting results ranked Spain 12th, with 106 points. The combination of jury and televote results gave Spain a 15th-place.

Contestants

Table key

1	Winner
2	Second place
3	Third place
◁	Last place
X	Entry selected but did not compete

Year	Artist	Language	Title	Final	Points	Semi	Points
1961	Conchita Bautista	Spanish	"Estando contigo"	9	8	No semi-finals
1962	Victor Balaguer	Spanish	"Llámame"	13 ◁	0
1963	José Guardiola	Spanish	"Algo prodigioso"	12	2
1964	Nelly, Tim & Tony	Spanish	"Caracola"	12	1
1965	Conchita Bautista	Spanish	"Qué bueno, qué bueno"	15 ◁	0
1966	Raphael	Spanish	"Yo soy aquél"	7	9
1967	Raphael	Spanish	"Hablemos del amor"	6	9
1968	Massiel	Spanish	"La, la, la"	1	29
1969	Salomé	Spanish	"Vivo cantando"	1	18
1970	Julio Iglesias	Spanish	"Gwendolyne"	4	8
1971	Karina	Spanish	"En un mundo nuevo"	2	116
1972	Jaime Morey	Spanish	"Amanece"	10	83
1973	Mocedades	Spanish	"Eres tú"	2	125
1974	Peret	Spanish	"Canta y sé feliz"	9	10
1975	Sergio y Estíbaliz	Spanish	"Tú volverás"	10	53
1976	Braulio	Spanish	"Sobran las palabras"	16	11
1977	Micky	Spanish	"Enséñame a cantar"	9	52
1978	José Vélez	Spanish, French	"Bailemos un vals"	9	65
1979	Betty Missiego	Spanish	"Su canción"	2	116
1980	Trigo Limpio	Spanish	"Quédate esta noche"	12	38
1981	Bacchelli	Spanish	"Y sólo tú"	14	38
1982	Lucía	Spanish	"Él"	10	52
1983	Remedios Amaya	Spanish	"¿Quién maneja mi barca?"	19 ◁	0
1984	Bravo	Spanish	"Lady, Lady"	3	106
1985	Paloma San Basilio	Spanish	"La fiesta terminó"	14	36
1986	Cadillac	Spanish	"Valentino"	10	51
1987	Patricia Kraus	Spanish	"No estás solo"	19	10
1988	La Década Prodigiosa	Spanish	"La chica que yo quiero"	11	58
1989	Nina	Spanish	"Nacida para amar"	6	88
1990	Azúcar Moreno	Spanish	"Bandido"	5	96
1991	Sergio Dalma	Spanish	"Bailar pegados"	4	119
1992	Serafín Zubiri	Spanish	"Todo esto es la música"	14	37
1993	Eva Santamaría	Spanish	"Hombres"	11	58	Kvalifikacija za Millstreet
1994	Alejandro Abad	Spanish	"Ella no es ella"	18	17	No semi-finals
1995	Anabel Conde	Spanish	"Vuelve conmigo"	2	119
1996	Antonio Carbonell	Spanish	"¡Ay, qué deseo!"	20	17	14	43
1997	Marcos Llunas	Spanish	"Sin rencor"	6	96	No semi-finals
1998	Mikel Herzog	Spanish	"¿Qué voy a hacer sin ti?"	16	21
1999	Lydia	Spanish	"No quiero escuchar"	23 ◁	1
2000	Serafín Zubiri	Spanish	"Colgado de un sueño"	18	18
2001	David Civera	Spanish	"Dile que la quiero"	6	76
2002	Rosa	Spanish, English	"Europe's Living a Celebration"	7	81
2003	Beth	Spanish	"Dime"	8	81
2004	Ramón	Spanish	"Para llenarme de ti"	10	87	Member of the "Big 4"
2005	Son de Sol	Spanish	"Brujería"	21	28
2006	Las Ketchup	Spanish	"Un Blodymary"	21	18
2007	D'NASH	Spanish, English	"I Love You Mi Vida"	20	43
2008	Rodolfo Chikilicuatre	Spanish, English	"Baila el Chiki-chiki"	16	55
2009	Soraya Arnelas	Spanish, English	"La noche es para mí"	24	23
2010	Daniel Diges	Spanish	"Algo pequeñito"	15	68
2011	Lucía Pérez	Spanish	"Que me quiten lo bailao"	23	50	Member of the "Big 5"
2012	Pastora Soler	Spanish	"Quédate conmigo"	10	97
2013	El Sueño de Morfeo	Spanish	"Contigo hasta el final"	25	8
2014	Ruth Lorenzo	English, Spanish	"Dancing in the Rain"	10	74
2015	Edurne	Spanish	"Amanecer"	21	15
2016	Barei	English	"Say Yay!"	22	77
2017	Manel Navarro	Spanish, English	"Do It for Your Lover"	26 ◁	5
2018	Amaia y Alfred	Spanish	"Tu canción"	23	61
2019	Miki	Spanish	"La venda"	22	54
2020	Blas Cantó	Spanish	"Universo"	Contest cancelled[lower-alpha 1] X
2021	Blas Cantó[15]

Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest

Spain was represented in the 50th aniversay of Eurovision, Congratulations, by their 1973 entry Mocedades, with the song "Eres tú". The group had made it into the top 14 for the special event after being selected in an online vote by the voting public across Europe.

Artist	Language	Title	At Congratulations				At Eurovision
			Final	Points	Semi	Points	Year	Place	Points
Mocedades	Spanish	"Eres tú"	Failed to qualify		11	90	1973	2	125

Hostings

Year	Location	Venue	Presenter
1969	Madrid	Teatro Real	Laura Valenzuela

Awards

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Further information: Marcel Bezençon Awards

Year	Category	Performer	Song	Final	Points	Host city	Ref.
2003	Fan Award	Beth	"Dime"	8	81	Riga	[16]

Barbara Dex Award

Further information: Barbara Dex Award

Year	Performer	Host city	Ref.
1999	Lydia	Jerusalem	[17]

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

Year	Head of delegation	Ref.
2002–2016	Federico Llano	[18]
2017–2020	Ana María Bordas	[19][20]

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Commentator	Spokesperson	Ref.
1961	Federico Gallo	Diego Ramírez Pastor	[21]
1962		Luis Marsillach	[21]
1963		Julio Rico	[21]
1964			[21]
1965		Pepe Palau	[21]
1966		Blanca Álvarez	[21]
1967			[21]
1968		Joaquín Prat	[21][22]
1969	José Luis Uribarri		[21][22]
1970			[23][22]
1971	Joaquín Prat	No spokesperson	[21]
1972	Julio Rico		[21]
1973			[21]
1974	José Luis Uribarri	Antolín García	[23]
1975		José María Íñigo	[23][22]
1976			[23][22]
1977	Miguel de los Santos	Isabel Tenaille	[21]
1978		Matías Prats Luque	[21][22]
1979		Manuel Almendros	[21]
1980		Alfonso Lapeña	[21]
1981		Isabel Tenaille	[21]
1982		Marisa Naranjo	[21][22]
1983	José-Miguel Ullán	Rosa Campano	[21]
1984		Matilde Jarrín	[21][22]
1985	Antonio Gómez		[21][22]
1986			[21][22]
1987	Beatriz Pécker		[21][22]
1988			[21][22]
1989	Tomás Fernando Flores		[21][22]
1990	Luis Cobos		[21][22]
1991	Tomás Fernando Flores	María Ángeles Balañac	[21][22]
1992	José Luis Uribarri		[23][22]
1993			[23][22]
1994			[23][22]
1995		Belén Fernández de Henestrosa	[23][22]
1996			[23][22]
1997			[23][22]
1998			[23][22]
1999		Hugo de Campos	[23]
2000			[23]
2001		Jennifer Rope	[23][22]
2002		Anne Igartiburu	[23][22]
2003			[23][22]
2004	Beatriz Pécker		[21][22]
2005		Ainhoa Arbizu	[21][22]
2006		Sonia Ferrer	[21][22]
2007		Ainhoa Arbizu	[21][22]
2008	José Luis Uribarri		[23][22]
2009	Joaquín Guzmán	Iñaki del Moral	[21][22]
2010	José Luis Uribarri	Ainhoa Arbizu	[23][22]
2011	José María Íñigo	Elena S. Sánchez	[21][24][25][22]
2012			[24][21][25][22]
2013		Inés Paz	[24][21][26][22]
2014		Carolina Casado	[24][21][27][22]
2015	José María Íñigo and Julia Varela	Lara Siscar	[28][21][22]
2016		Jota Abril	[28][21][29]
2017		Nieves Álvarez	[28][21]
2018	Tony Aguilar and Julia Varela		[28]
2019			[30]

Stage directors

Year	Stage director	Ref.
2015	Tinet Rubira	[31]
2016	Niccolò Piccardi and Florian Boje	[32]
2017	Hans Pannecoucke	[33]
2018	Tinet Rubira	[34]
2019	Fokas Evangelinos	[35]

Photogallery

• 
  Conchita Bautista in Naples (1965)
• 
  Julio Iglesias in Amsterdam (1970)
• 
  Ramón in Istanbul (2004)
• 
  D'NASH in Helsinki (2007)
• 
  Rodolfo Chikilicuatre in Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Daniel Diges in Oslo (2010)
• 
  El Sueño de Morfeo in Malmö (2013)
• 
  Ruth Lorenzo in Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Edurne in Vienna (2015)
• 
  Barei in Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Manel Navarro in Kiev (2017)
• 
  Amaia and Alfred in Lisbon (2018)
• 
  Miki in Tel Aviv (2019)

See also

• Spain in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest – Junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Spain in the Eurovision Dance Contest – Dance version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Spain in the Eurovision Young Dancers – A competition organised by the EBU for younger dancers aged between 16 and 21.
• Spain in the Eurovision Young Musicians – A competition organised by the EBU for musicians aged 18 years and younger.
• Spain in the OTI Festival – A competition organised by the OTI (Iberoamerican Telecommunications Organistation) Between 1972 and 2000

Notes and references

Notes

1. The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

1. del Amor Caballero, Reyes (4 May 2004). "Preselecciones españolas para Eurovisión, primera parte". eurovision-spain.com (in Spanish).
2. del Amor Caballero, Reyes (20 May 2004). "Segunda parte de las preselecciones españolas, 1970–2004". eurovision-spain.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 1 March 2008.
3. "Eurovisión pierde más de 4 millones de espectadores" (in Spanish). FormulaTV.com. 18 May 2009.
4. "TVE comienza este lunes la selección para Eurovisión". vertele.com (in Spanish). 20 November 2008. Archived from the original on 21 May 2009.
5. M. Escudero, Victor (27 November 2009). "Spain: TVE calls for entries for Oslo". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 19 January 2010.
6. "Pastora Soler representará a España en Eurovisión 2012 en Bakú". RTVE.es (in Spanish). RTVE. 21 December 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
7. "Las claves de la derrota de España en Eurovisión". EuropaPress. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
8. 'Operación Triunfo' vuelve a La 1, 16 años después de su estreno en TVE
9. "La representación de España en Eurovisión 2018 saldrá de 'Operación Triunfo'". RTVE.es. 5 December 2017. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
10. "Alfred & Amaia admit "the final result is shite"…as Spain achieves highest Eurovision ratings since 2008". wiwibloggs.com. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
11. "Spain: TVE confirms participation in Eurovision 2019". esctoday.com. 14 September 2018. Retrieved 14 September 2018.
12. "Spain: TVE confirms participation in Eurovision 2020". Sanjay (Sergio) Jiandani. esctoday.com. 18 September 2019. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
13. O'Connor, John Kennedy (2005). The Eurovision Song Contest 50 Years The Official History. London: Carlton Books Limited. ISBN 1-84442-586-X.
14. Fulton, Rick (14 May 2007). "The East V West Song Contest". Daily Record. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
15. Granger, Anthony (18 March 2020). "Spain: Blas Cantó Accepts TVE's Invitation To Be Eurovision 2021 Representative". Eurovoix. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
16. "Marcel Bezençon Awards". eurovision.tv. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
17. Adams, William Lee (9 July 2015). "Poll: Who was the worst dressed Barbara Dex Award winner?". Wiwibloggs. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
18. García Hernández, José (25 February 2017). "Federico Llano no estará en Kiev como jefe de la delegación española". eurovision-spain.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 December 2019.
19. "Ana María Bordas, jefa de la delegación para Eurovisión, nueva vicepresidenta del Comité de TV de la UER". eldiario.es (in Spanish). 29 May 2019. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
20. Jiandani, Sanjay (Sergio) (29 May 2019). "EBU: New TV Committee elected at TV Assembly in Porto". esctoday.com. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
21. HerGar, Paula (27 March 2018). "Todos los comentaristas de la historia de España en Eurovisión (y una única mujer en solitario)". Los 40 (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 December 2019.
22. Jiménez, Roberto (23 May 2015). "¿Quiénes han dado mayor número de veces los puntos de España?". ElTelevisero.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 December 2019.
23. García Hernández, José; Mahía, Manu (23 July 2011). "Fallece Uribarri, se apaga la voz de Eurovisión en España". Eurovision-Spain.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 16 December 2019.
24. "José María Íñigo será el comentarista de Eurovisión 2014 por cuarto año consecutivo" (in Spanish). FormulaTV. 25 March 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
25. "José María Íñigo comentará Eurovisión por segundo año consecutivo". eldiario.es (in Spanish). 30 April 2012. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
26. Álvarez, José (7 May 2013). "Inés Paz ('La mañana de La 1') dará los votos de España en Eurovisión". Formula TV (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
27. "Eurovision Song Contest 2014: ecco l'elenco degli spokesperson" (in Italian). Eurofestival News. 8 May 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
28. "Tony Aguilar comentará junto a Julia Varela Eurovisión 2018" (in Spanish). RTVE. 14 March 2018.
29. "Xuso Jones, Salvador Beltrán, Electric Nana, Maverick y Coral Segovia, jurado profesional de TVE para Eurovisión". rtve.es. RTVE (in Spanish). 29 April 2016. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
30. "Tony Aguilar y Julia Varela comentarán Eurovisión 2019 y Nieves Álvarez será la portavoz del jurado español" (in Spanish). RTVE. 25 March 2019.
31. "Tinet Rubira liderará la puesta en escena de Edurne en el Festival de Eurovisión". www.rtve.es. El Periódico de Catalunya. 10 April 2015. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
32. "Niccolò Piccardi nos explica cómo se ideó la puesta en escena de "Say yay!" de Barei". rtve.es (in Spanish). RTVE. 9 May 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
33. "El belga Hans Pannecoucke es el director artístico de la puesta en escena de Manel Navarro" [The Belgian Hans Pannecoucke is the artistic director of Manel Navarro's stage performance]. rtve.es (in Spanish). RTVE. 8 March 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
34. Macías, Fernando (7 March 2018). "Alfred y Amaia: "La puesta en escena de "Tu canción" habla sobre un amor universal"". www.rtve.es. RTVE. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
35. Jiandani, Sanjay (Sergio) (16 February 2019). "Spain: Fokas Evangelinos will be responsible for Miki's staging in Tel Aviv". esctoday.com. Retrieved 16 February 2019.

External links

• Points to and from Spain eurovisioncovers.co.uk