Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Poland originally planned to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. The Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) will use the national selection Szansa na Sukces - Eurowizja 2020 to decide their representative. However, due to 2019-20 pandemic of Coronavirus, the contest was cancelled.

Eurovision Song Contest 2020
Country Poland
National selection
Selection processSzansa na Sukces - Eurowizja 2020
Selection date(s)Semi-finals:
2 February 2020
9 February 2020
16 February 2020
Grand Final:
23 February 2020
Selected entrantAlicja Szemplińska
Selected song"Empires"
Selected songwriter(s)Patryk Kumór
Dominic Buczkowski-Wojtaszek
Laurell Barker
Frazer Mac
Finals performance
Semi-final resultCancelled
Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2019 • 2020

Background
Main article: Poland in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2020 Contest, Poland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-two times since its first entry in 1994.[1] Poland's highest placement in the contest, to this point, has been second place, which the nation achieved with its debut entry in 1994 with the song "To nie ja!" performed by Edyta Górniak. Poland has only, thus far, reached the top ten on two other occasions, when Ich Troje performing the song "Keine Grenzen – Żadnych granic" finished seventh in 2003 and when Michał Szpak performing the song "Color of Your Life" finished eighth in 2016. Between 2005 and 2011, Poland failed to qualify from the semi-final round six out of seven years with only their 2008 entry, "For Life" performed by Isis Gee, managing to take the nation to the final during that period. After once again failing to qualify to the final in 2011, the country withdrew from the contest during 2012 and 2013. Since returning to the contest in 2014, Poland managed to qualify to the final with both their 2014 entry, "My Słowianie - We Are Slavic" performed by Donatan and Cleo, their 2015 entry "In the Name of Love" performed by Monika Kuszyńska, their 2016 entry "Color of Your Life" performed by Michał Szpak and their 2017 entry "Flashlight" performed by Kasia Moś. In 2018, Poland was represented by Gromee feat. Lukas Meijer with the song "Light Me Up", which placed fourteenth in the semi-final with 81 points, marking the first time Poland failed to qualify to the final since their return in 2014. In 2019, Poland was represented by Tulia with the song "Fire of Love (Pali się)" which placed eleventh in the semi-final with 120 points, missing the final by two points. That was the second time Poland did not qualify since 2014.

The Polish national broadcaster, Telewizja Polska (TVP), broadcasts the event within Poland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Between 2006 and 2011, TVP organised televised national finals that featured a competition among several artists and songs in order to select the Polish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. After returning to the contest in 2014 following their two-year absence, the broadcaster opted to internally select both the 2014 and 2015 entries. Instead of having the entry being selected through a national final like in 2016, 2017 and 2018, in 2019, an internal selection was used. In 2020, the Polish entry will be chosen by Szansa na sukces.

Before Eurovision

Szansa na sukces

Szansa na sukces (transl. Chance of Success) is a competition organised by TVP that selected the artist and song representing Poland in the contest. It consisted of three pre-recorded semi-finals broadcast on 2, 9 and 16 February 2020, each lasting 65 minutes and a final held on 23 February 2020. All shows will be broadcast on TVP2. In all episodes, participants will be judged by a jury made up of former Polish representatives in Eurovision:[2]

Semi-final 1

The first semi-final was broadcast on 2 February 2020 at 15:15. All seven semi-finalists performed songs from ABBA's discography. The following seven artists competed in this semi-final.The contestant in highlighted gold qualified for the season finale, while other contestant highlighted in blue was the honourable mention.

Draw Artist Song Result
1 Patryk Skoczyński "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" Honourable mention
2 Emilia Sanecka "Waterloo" Eliminated
3 Julia & Wiktoria Szlachta "Dancing Queen" Eliminated
4 Kasia Dereń "Mamma Mia" Finalist
5 Amelia Andryszczyk "S.O.S" Eliminated
6 Sargis Davtyan "Voulez-Vous" Eliminated
7 Maja Hyży "Knowing Me, Knowing You" Eliminated

Semi-final 2

The second semi-final was broadcast on 9 February 2020 at 15:15. All seven semi-finalists performed songs from Eurovision Song Contest. The following seven artists competed in this semi-final.The contestant in highlighted gold qualified for the season finale, while two other contestants highlighted in blue were the honourable mentions.

Draw Artist Song Result
1 Damian Kulej "Heroes" Eliminated
2 Paulina Czapla "Amar pelos dois" Honourable mention
3 Weronika Curyło "Dschinghis Khan" Honourable mention
4 Stashka "If I Were Sorry" Eliminated
5 Saszan "Congratulations" Eliminated
6 Alicja Szemplińska "To nie ja!" Finalist
7 Aleksandra Nykiel "Save Your Kisses for Me" Eliminated

Semi-final 3

The third semi-final was broadcast on 16 February 2020 at 15:15. All seven semi-finalists performed songs from The Beatles's discography. The following seven artists competed in this semi-final.The contestant in highlighted gold qualified for the season finale, while two other contestants highlighted in blue were the honourable mentions.

Draw Artist Song Result
1 Marek Kaliszuk "Help!" Eliminated
2 Nick Sinckler "Can't Buy Me Love" Honourable mention
3 Basia Gąsienica Giewont "Love Me Do" Honourable mention
4 Albert Černý "Please Please Me" Finalist
5 Norbert Legieć "She Loves You" Eliminated
6 Marzena Ryt "Twist and Shout" Eliminated
7 Adrian Makar "A Hard Day's Night" Eliminated

Final

The final will be broadcast on 23 February 2020 at 15:15. Three finalists will compete and the winner will be determined by a combination of jury voting and televoting. Each finalist will perform two songs: one cover song and one original song to be their candidate entry in hopes of representing Poland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020.

Draw Artist Cover (Original artist) Draw ESC song Songwriters Jury Televote Total Place
1 Kasia Dereń "Satellite" (Lena) 6 "Count On Me" Mateusz Krautwurst, Marcin Januszkiewicz, Kasia Dereń, Piotr Walicki 1 1 2 3
2 Alicja Szemplińska "Euphoria" (Loreen) 5 "Empires" Dominik Buczkowski-Wojtaszek, Patrik Kumór, Laurell Barker, Mac Frazer 5 5 10 1
3 Albert Černý "Fairytale" (Alexander Rybak) 4 "Lucy" Alasdair Bouch, Albert Černý, Cesár Sampson, Joakim With Steen, Lasse Piirainen 3 3 6 2

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 2020, 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. Poland was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2020, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.[3] However, due to 2019-20 pandemic of Coronavirus, the contest was cancelled.

In the Eurovision Song Celebration youtube broadcast in place of the heats, it was revealed that the song would have performed 8th in Semi Final 2, having been preceded by Serbia and preceding Iceland.[4]

References
  1. "Poland Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 19 January 2015.
  2. Christou, Costa. "Poland: More details of Szansa na Sukces 2020 have been revealed". ESCxtra. Retrieved 19 January 2020.
  3. Groot, Evert (28 January 2020). "Which country performs in which Eurovision 2020 Semi-Final". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  4. Eurovision Song Contest (14 May 2020). "Part two of Eurovision Song Celebration". Retrieved 3 June 2020.
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