Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Croatia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, which took place in Kiev, Ukraine, in May 2017. After the successful return in 2016, Croatian national broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) confirmed on 17 September 2016 that they would also participate in 2017.[1]

Eurovision Song Contest 2017
Country	Croatia
National selection
Selection process	Internal Selection
Selection date(s)	Artist: 17 February 2017 Song: 2 March 2017
Selected entrant	Jacques Houdek
Selected song	"My Friend"
Selected songwriter(s)	Jacques Houdek Tony Roberth Malm Siniša Reljić Arjana Kunštek Ines Prajo Fabrizio Laucella
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (8th, 141 points)
Final result	13th, 128 points
Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2016 • 2017 • 2018►

Background

Main article: Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2017 contest, Croatia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-two times since their debut in Millstreet 1993.[2] The nation's highest placing in the contest was fourth, which they achieved two times: in 1996 with the song "Sveta ljubav" performed by Maja Blagdan and in 1999 with "Marija Magdalena" performed by Doris Dragović. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004 contest, Croatia had featured in six finals. Croatia's least successful result in the final has been twenty-third place, which they achieved in 2016 with the song "Lighthouse" performed by Nina Kraljić, their first final performance after 7 years. And Croatia's least successful result in semi final has been sixteenth place, which they achieved in 2007 with the song "Vjerujem u ljubav", performed by Dragonfly and Dado Topić.

Before Eurovision

Internal selection

The Croatian broadcaster HRT confirmed on 17 September 2016 their intention to participate in the 2017 edition. However they haven't announced the way their entry will be chosen. As there wasn't anything said about submitting for any new national selection, it was most likely that HRT will select the entry internally again. On 17 February 2017, exactly five months after they confirmed their participation, they announced that Jacques Houdek was selected internally to represent the country.[3] The song title, "My Friend", was released on 20 February 2017.[4]

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.[5] 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. Croatia was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 11 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.[6] After the official semi final draw was released, Croatia was supposed to perform 12th. After Russia's withdrawal, Croatia was set to perform 11th. Jacques Houdek managed to qualify to the grand final placing 8th in the semi with 141 points. This was second year in a row that Croatia qualified. In the final, he performed 13th and finished on the 13th place with 128 points, which was Croatia's best result in 10 years.

Points awarded to Croatia

Points awarded to Croatia (Semi-final 2)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
	Austria  Hungary   Switzerland	Macedonia  Malta	Ireland  Serbia	Bulgaria  Germany  San Marino
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Estonia  Romania	Belarus  Netherlands	Ukraine	France  Lithuania	Norway
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
			Romania	Bulgaria
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Germany  Ukraine	San Marino	Belarus  Serbia	Netherlands	Austria  Norway

Points awarded to Croatia (final)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Montenegro  Slovenia	Macedonia	Germany   Switzerland	Albania	Italy
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Hungary  Serbia  United Kingdom	Austria	Ireland  Malta  Netherlands  Romania  San Marino	Sweden	Australia  Bulgaria  Norway  Poland
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
			Ukraine	Malta
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Montenegro		Germany  Romania		Azerbaijan

Points awarded by Croatia

Semi-final 2 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Hungary  Netherlands 10 points  Serbia  Hungary 8 points  Bulgaria  Denmark 7 points  Romania  Belarus 6 points  Macedonia  Bulgaria 5 points  Israel  Austria 4 points  Austria  Norway 3 points  Belarus  Israel 2 points  Netherlands  Serbia 1 point   Switzerland  Malta

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Hungary  Hungary 10 points  Portugal  Bulgaria 8 points  Bulgaria  Netherlands 7 points  Italy  Portugal 6 points  Romania  Australia 5 points  Belgium  Belarus 4 points  Moldova  Sweden 3 points  France  Denmark 2 points  Sweden  Norway 1 point  Netherlands  Austria

Split voting results from Croatia (Semi-final 2)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		T. Preradović	D. Jelusić	S. Lozar	I. Kindl	S. Doležal	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Serbia	9	15	9	10	10	9	2	2	10
02	Austria	5	9	5	4	5	6	5	7	4
03	Macedonia	13	14	11	14	11	13		5	6
04	Malta	10	8	14	12	9	10	1	16
05	Romania	17	16	17	17	17	17		4	7
06	Netherlands	1	1	3	1	2	1	12	9	2
07	Hungary	2	4	1	2	1	2	10	1	12
08	Denmark	4	2	4	5	6	3	8	14
09	Ireland	14	17	10	16	16	16		13
10	San Marino	11	13	16	15	13	14		15
11	Croatia
12	Norway	8	10	2	11	4	7	4	11
13	Switzerland	15	7	13	9	15	12		10	1
14	Belarus	3	3	7	6	3	4	7	8	3
15	Bulgaria	6	5	6	3	7	5	6	3	8
16	Lithuania	12	11	12	8	12	11		17
17	Estonia	16	12	15	13	14	15		12
18	Israel	7	6	8	7	8	8	3	6	5

Split voting results from Croatia (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		T. Preradović	D. Jelusić	S. Lozar	I. Kindl	S. Doležal	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	18	13	18	24	16	18		19
02	Poland	22	7	14	12	17	13		22
03	Belarus	2	8	11	9	7	6	5	11
04	Austria	9	14	10	8	10	10	1	15
05	Armenia	6	23	15	25	15	16		23
06	Netherlands	3	1	6	2	5	3	8	10	1
07	Moldova	13	11	13	19	11	12		7	4
08	Hungary	1	9	1	1	1	1	12	1	12
09	Italy	19	24	9	13	12	15		4	7
10	Denmark	10	2	12	4	13	8	3	20
11	Portugal	5	5	4	6	3	4	7	2	10
12	Azerbaijan	17	22	17	17	18	20		14
13	Croatia
14	Australia	7	4	8	7	4	5	6	12
15	Greece	23	16	21	20	19	22		24
16	Spain	24	15	24	18	25	24		25
17	Norway	14	12	7	5	9	9	2	13
18	United Kingdom	15	17	5	14	8	11		16
19	Cyprus	16	18	19	21	24	21		17
20	Romania	8	6	25	15	20	14		5	6
21	Germany	21	20	20	11	14	17		18
22	Ukraine	20	25	23	16	22	23		21
23	Belgium	25	21	22	23	23	25		6	5
24	Sweden	11	10	2	10	6	7	4	9	2
25	Bulgaria	4	3	3	3	2	2	10	3	8
26	France	12	19	16	22	21	19		8	3

See also

• Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Eurovision Song Contest 2017

References

1. Błażewicz, Maciej (17 September 2016). "Croatia confirms Eurovision 2017 participation". escbubble.com. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
2. "Croatia | Country profile | Eurovision Song Contest". Eurovision.tv. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
3. "Eurosong - Jacques Houdek predstavlja Hrvatsku na natjecanju za pjesmu Eurovizije u Ukrajini". eurosong.hrt.hr (in Croatian). 17 February 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
4. "Jacques Houdek na 62. natjecanju za pjesmu Eurovizije nastupa s pjesmom My friend". eurosong.hrt.hr (in Croatian). HRT. 20 February 2017.
5. Jordan, Paul (25 January 2017). "Semi-Final Allocation draw to take place in Kyiv". eurovision.tv. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
6. Jordan, Paul (31 January 2017). "Results of the Semi-Final Allocation Draw". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 31 January 2017.