The country scored poorly in three previous attempts to win the song contest
The Czech Republic will participate in the Eurovision 2015 song contest, after an absence of five years, the contest organizers announced.
“We are very excited to have Czech Republic return to the Eurovision Song Contest after five years of absence, making the Eurovision Family even more complete for the 60th anniversary edition.” says Jon Ola Sand, executive producer of the contest on behalf of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
The Czech Republic has not done well in the contest. It first took part in the contest in 2007 with the band Kabát, which didn’t qualify for the Grand Final and scored only one point in the semifinals.
The country participated two more times. Tereza Kerndlová received nine points, coming in 18th place out of 19 semifinalists in 2008. In 2009 the Romany band Gipsy.cz scored no points, the 16th entry to do so poorly since the current voting method was introduced in 1975, according to Wikipedia.
After the dismal last place showing and poor TV ratings, the Czech Republic dropped out of the contest citing a general lack of interest.
“Czech Television is happy to be back again in that wonderful competition. After three entries in the previous years we hope to offer Europe a top quality Czech song.” Markéta Štinglová, manager of International Content Project Center at Czech Television, said on the Eurovision website.
Czech Television will use an expert jury to pick the entry, rather than letting viewers vote over the Internet or by phone message. The jury will be offered five songs that are commissioned directly from well-known composers, according to Eurovision.
A bit of trivia is that the first Czech participant at the Eurovision Song Contest was Karel Gott, who represented Austria in 1968. He lost to Spanish group Massiel, which sang “La, la, la.”
The finals of the Eurovison 2015 song contest will be held May 23, 2015, in Vienna, Austria. That is because Austrian performer Conchita Wurst won in 2014 with the song “Rise Like a Phoenix.” The host country is determined by the previous year’s winner.
Some 39 countries will participate. In addition to the Czech Republic, both Cyprus and Serbia are returning. Ukraine is dropping out due to financial reasons.
