Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest

Hungary has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times since making its debut in 1994. Hungary attempted to participate in 1993 but failed to qualify from a special qualifying competition set up for seven former eastern bloc countries.

Hungary
Member station	Duna Media Service Provider
National selection events	National final 1994 1996–1997 2005 2007–2008 A Dal 2012–2019 Internal Selection 1993 1995 1998 2009 2011
Participation summary
Appearances	17 (14 finals)
First appearance	1994
Best result	4th: 1994
External links
MTV page
Hungary's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Hungary's first contest in 1994 remains its most successful, with Friderika Bayer finishing in fourth place. The country's only other top five result is András Kállay-Saunders' fifth-place in 2014. Their other top ten results are Magdi Rúzsa finishing ninth in 2007, ByeAlex tenth in 2013, and Joci Pápai eighth in 2017, giving Hungary a total of five top ten placements.

History

The country's first entry would have been "Árva reggel", performed by Andrea Szulák, in 1993, but a qualification round was installed just for former Eastern Bloc countries, and the song did not manage to qualify to the grand final. The first official participation was of "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?", performed by Frederika Bayer, in 1994. Hungary received the maximum score of 12 points from the first three countries to vote. However, as the competition progressed, it attracted fewer votes, and finished in fourth place.

The 1995 entry was not as successful, garnering only 3 points, narrowly beating last-place Germany. In 1996 Hungary again failed to qualify when "Fortuna", performed by Gjon Delhusa did not qualify from the pre-qualification round.

Hungary withdrew after the 1998 contest, returning in 2005, where they finished in 12th place in the final with "Forogj, világ!", performed by NOX. However, Hungary withdrew again in 2006, returning in 2007 with "Unsubstantial Blues", the first Hungarian entry in English, performed by Magdi Rúzsa, the winner of the 3rd season of the Hungarian talent show Megasztár. The song came 9th in Helsinki, receiving 128 points in the final.

After coming last in the semi-final in the 2008 contest, Magyar Televízió (MTV), the Hungarian broadcaster, confirmed Hungary's participation at the 2009 contest in Moscow. After MTV's original choice was revealed to have been released before 1 October 2008, breaking contest rules, it was decided that "Dance with Me", performed by Zoltán Ádok, would be Hungary's entry, after MTV's second choice to represent Hungary declined.[1][2] The song placed 15th in the second semi-final, failing to qualify for the grand final for the second time since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004.

In October 2009, MTV confirmed that they would not participate in the 2010 contest due to financial limitations in the company which would prevent them from sending an entry to the contest in Bærum, Norway.[3] Duna TV broadcast the event live and applied for EBU membership to send a representative to Düsseldorf in 2011. However, during the EBU's 65th conference, Duna TV's bid to become an active member was rejected. In December 2010, it was confirmed that MTV had agreed to return to the 2011 edition.[4] MTV internally selected the song "What About My Dreams?", performed by Kati Wolf. The song placed 7th in the first semi-final with 72 points, and was the first entry representing Hungary to qualify for the final since 2007. In the final, the song placed 22nd with 53 points.

In 2012, MTV organised a national final, A Dal, to select the Hungarian entry for the contest in Baku. The song "Sound of Our Hearts", performed by Compact Disco, was selected. The song placed 10th in the first semi-final with 52 points, and 24th in the final with 19 points. As of 2019, A Dal has been used as the Hungarian selection process every year since.

In 2013, Hungary reached the top 10, when the song "Kedvesem (Zoohacker Remix)", performed by ByeAlex, placed 10th with 84 points. Hungary reached the top 5 in 2014, when the song "Running", performed by András Kállay-Saunders, placed 5th with 143 points, achieving the best result Hungary has had since their first participation in 1994.

Hungary made it to the top ten once again in 2017, when the song "Origo", performed by Joci Pápai, placed 8th with 200 points, achieving their best result in three years.

In 2019, Hungary failed to qualify for the final, therefore not appearing in a final for the first time since 2010, when the country did not participate.

Hungary did not appear on the final list of participants for the 2020 contest.[5] MTVA stated that they would "support the valuable productions created by the talents of Hungarian pop music directly" instead of participating in the contest.[6] The withdrawal came during a rise of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment among the leadership of Hungary and MTVA; while no official reason for the withdrawal was given by the broadcaster, an inside source speaking with the website Index.hu stated that the contest was considered "too gay" for MTVA to participate.[7]

Contestants

Table key

2	Second place
3	Third place
◁	Last place

Year	Artist	Language	Title	Final	Points	Semi	Points
1993	Andrea Szulák	Hungarian	"Árva reggel"	Failed to qualify[lower-alpha 1]		6	44
1994	Friderika Bayer	Hungarian	"Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?"	4	122	No semi-finals
1995	Csaba Szigeti	Hungarian	"Új név a régi ház falán"	22	3
1996	Gjon Delhusa	Hungarian	"Fortuna"	Failed to qualify[lower-alpha 1]		23	26
1997	V.I.P.	Hungarian	"Miért kell, hogy elmenj?"	12	39	No semi-finals
1998	Charlie	Hungarian	"A holnap már nem lesz szomorú"	23	4
2005	NOX	Hungarian	"Forogj, világ!"	12	97	5	167
2007	Magdi Rúzsa	English	"Unsubstantial Blues"	9	128	2	224
2008	Csézy	English, Hungarian	"Candlelight"	Failed to qualify		19 ◁	6
2009	Zoli Ádok	English	"Dance with Me"			15	16
2011	Kati Wolf	English, Hungarian	"What About My Dreams?"	22	53	7	72
2012	Compact Disco	English	"Sound of Our Hearts"	24	19	10	52
2013	ByeAlex	Hungarian	"Kedvesem (Zoohacker Remix)"	10	84	8	66
2014	András Kállay-Saunders	English	"Running"	5	143	3	127
2015	Boggie	English	"Wars for Nothing"	20	19	8	67
2016	Freddie	English	"Pioneer"	19	108	4	197
2017	Joci Pápai	Hungarian	"Origo"	8	200	2	231
2018	AWS	Hungarian	"Viszlát nyár"	21	93	10	111
2019	Joci Pápai	Hungarian	"Az én apám"	Failed to qualify		12	97

Awards

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Year	Category	Song	Composer(s) lyrics (l) / music (m)	Performer	Final	Points	Host city	Ref.
2007	Composer Award	"Unsubstantial Blues"	Magdi Rúzsa (m) and Imre Mózsik (l)	Magdi Rúzsa	9	128	Helsinki	[8]

Winner by OGAE members

Further information: OGAE

Year	Song	Performer	Place	Points	Host city	Ref.
2011	"What About My Dreams?"	Kati Wolf	22	53	Düsseldorf	[9]

Barbara Dex Award

Further information: Barbara Dex Award

Year	Performer	Host city	Ref.
2009	Zoli Ádok	Moscow	[10]

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

Year(s)	Head of delegation	Ref.
2008–2016	Szilvia Püspök
2017–2019	Lőrinc Bubnó

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Commentator	TV channel	Spokesperson	Ref.
1993	István Vágó	M1	Did not participate
1994		M2	Iván Bradányi
1995		M1	Katalin Bogyay
1996		M2	Did not participate
1997		M1	Györgyi Albert
1998	Gábor Gundel Takács		Barna Héder
1999–2004	No television broadcast		Did not participate
2005	Zsuzsa Demcsák, András Fáber, Dávid Szántó	M1	Zsuzsa Demcsák
2006	No television broadcast		Did not participate
2007	Gábor Gundel Takács	M1	Éva Novodomszky
2008
2009		M1 HD
2010	Zsolt Jeszenszky	Duna HD	Did not participate
2011	Gábor Gundel Takács	M1 HD	Éva Novodomszky
2012
2013
2014
2015		Duna HD	Csilla Tatár
2016
2017	Krisztina Rátonyi and Freddie
2018			Bence Forró	[11][12]
2019				[13]

Photogallery

• 
  Magdi Rúzsa in Helsinki (2007)
• 
  Csézy in Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Kati Wolf in Düsseldorf (2011)
• 
  ByeAlex in Malmö (2013)
• 
  András Kállay-Saunders in Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Boggie in Vienna (2015)
• 
  Freddie in Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Joci Pápai in Kyiv (2017)
• 
  AWS in Lisbon (2018)
• 
  Joci Pápai in Tel Aviv (2019)

Notes and references

Notes

1. Hungary attempted to qualify in 1993 when there was a pre-qualifying round for seven countries hoping to make their debut in the contest and in 1996 when there was an audio-only pre-qualifier for all countries (excluding hosts Norway). Hungary is one of only two countries (along with Romania) to have unsuccessfully attempted to participate in both 1993 and 1996. The official Eurovision site does not count either year in Hungary's list of appearances.

References

1. Klier, Marcus (10 February 2009). "Hungary: Kátya Tompos withdraws from Eurovision". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
2. Jiandani, Sanjay (23 February 2009). "Hungary: Zoli Adok to Eurovision". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
3. Hondal, Victor (22 October 2009). "Hungary withdraws from Eurovision Song Contest". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
4. Hondal, Victor (27 December 2010). "Hungary returns to the Eurovision Song Contest". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
5. Herbert, Emily (13 November 2019). "41 Countries Will Participate in The Eurovision Song Contest 2020". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
6. Jiandani, Sanjay (29 October 2019). "Hungary: MTVA withdraws from Eurovision 2020". esctoday.com. Retrieved 16 November 2019.
7. Walker, Shaun; Garamvolgyi, Flora (27 November 2019). "Hungary pulls out of Eurovision amid rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric". The Guardian.
8. "Marcel Bezençon Awards". eurovision.tv. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
9. Cobb, Ryan (21 April 2017). "Analysing ten years of OGAE voting: "Underneath the fan favourite bias is a worthwhile indicator"". escxtra.com. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
10. Adams, William Lee (9 July 2015). "Poll: Who was the worst dressed Barbara Dex Award winner?". Wiwibloggs. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
11. Farren, Neil (6 December 2017). "Hungary: A Dal 2018 Participants Announced". eurovoix.com. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
12. ""May we have your votes please?"". eurovision.tv. EBU. 11 May 2018. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
13. "Eurovision 2019 Spokespersons – Who will announce the points?". eurovisionworld.com. 18 May 2019. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.

External links

• Points to and from Hungary eurovisioncovers.co.uk