Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Czech Republic participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "My Turn" written by DWB and Kyler Niko. The song is performed by Martina Bárta, who was internally selected by the Czech broadcaster Česká televize (ČT) to represent the nation at the 2017 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine. Martina Bárta's appointment as the Czech representative was announced on 15 February 2017, while the song, "My Turn", was presented to the public on 7 March 2017.

Eurovision Song Contest 2017
Country	Czech Republic
National selection
Selection process	Internal Selection
Selection date(s)	Artist: 15 February 2017 Song: 7 March 2017
Selected entrant	Martina Bárta
Selected song	"My Turn"
Selected songwriter(s)	DWB Kyler Niko
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Failed to qualify (13th, 83 points)
Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2016 • 2017 • 2018►

Czech Republic was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 9 May 2017. Performing during the show in position 14, "My Turn" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final.

Background

Prior to the 2017 Contest, Czech Republic had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest five times since its first entry in 2007.[1] The nation competed in the contest on four consecutive occasions between 2007 and 2009 without qualifying to the final: in 2007 Kabát performing "Malá dáma" placed 28th (last) in the semi-final achieving only one point, in 2008 Tereza Kerndlová performing "Have Some Fun" placed 18th (second to last) in her semi-final scoring nine points, in 2009 Gipsy.cz performing the song "Aven Romale" placed 18th (last) in their semi-final failing to score any points and in 2015 Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta performing "Hope Never Dies" placed 13th in their semi-final scoring thirty-three points. The Czech broadcaster withdrew from the contest between 2010 and 2014 citing reasons such as low viewing figures and poor results for their absence.[2] In 2015, Czech Republic returned to the contest and once again failed to qualify to the final with the song "Hope Never Dies" performed by Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta. In 2016, Czech Republic was represented by Gabriela Gunčíková and the song "I Stand". As a result, the country qualified for the final and placed 25th out of 26 entries. This marked the first qualification to the final for the Czech Republic since they debuted in the contest in 2007. Meanwhile, the Czech entry for the 2017 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine was selected through an internal selection.

Before Eurovision

Internal selection

On 15 February 2017, Martina Bárta was announced by ČT as the Czech entry for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.[3] The song "My Turn" was selected by ČT together with a five-member jury consisting of conductor and composer Martin Kumžák, singer, producer and composer Jiří Škorpík, composer Michal Dvořák, composer and singer Michal Pavlíček and musician, composer and conductor Ota Balage. "My Turn", which was written by the British team DWB and Kyler Niko, was one of five songs shortlisted by the jury and broadcaster from 300 proposals that the broadcaster received.[4] The song was presented to the public via the release of the audio on 7 March 2017, while the official music video was released on 13 March 2017.[5][6]

Promotion

Martina Bárta made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "My Turn" as the Czech Eurovision entry. On 25 March, Bárta performed during the Eurovision PreParty Riga, which was organised by OGAE Latvia and held at the Cristal Club in Riga, Latvia. On 2 April, she performed during the London Eurovision Party, which was held at the Café de Paris venue in London, United Kingdom and hosted by Nicki French. Between 3 and 6 April, Martina Bárta took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel where she performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Ha'teatron venue.[7][8] On 8 April, Bárta performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Selma Björnsdóttir.[9] On 15 April, she performed during the Eurovision Spain Pre-Party, which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain.[10]

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.[11] 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. Czech Republic was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 9 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.[12]

Once all the competing songs for the 2017 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Czech Republic was set to perform in position 14, following the entry from Iceland and before the entry from Cyprus.[13]

Points awarded to Czech Republic

Points awarded to Czech Republic (Semi-final 1)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
			Portugal
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Portugal	Slovenia  Spain	United Kingdom	Latvia	Belgium
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Iceland	Armenia  Australia  Azerbaijan  Sweden	Poland	Montenegro	Cyprus  Georgia

Points awarded by Czech Republic

Semi-final 1 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Azerbaijan  Australia 10 points  Moldova  Sweden 8 points  Poland  Poland 7 points  Portugal  Portugal 6 points  Belgium  Moldova 5 points  Armenia  Cyprus 4 points  Cyprus  Azerbaijan 3 points  Finland  Belgium 2 points  Sweden  Montenegro 1 point  Slovenia  Finland

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Bulgaria  Portugal 10 points  Azerbaijan  Australia 8 points  Portugal  Netherlands 7 points  Ukraine  Sweden 6 points  Romania  Denmark 5 points  Moldova  United Kingdom 4 points  Belgium  Austria 3 points  Belarus  Moldova 2 points  Armenia  Bulgaria 1 point  Italy  Poland

Split voting results from the Czech Republic (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		J. Sidovský	E. Stoilow	DJ Lucca	E. Mraz	K. Říhová	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Sweden	2	2	1	3	1	2	10	9	2
02	Georgia	13	9	14	9	17	14		16
03	Australia	1	1	3	1	3	1	12	12
04	Albania	14	13	15	13	16	16		15
05	Belgium	6	14	8	10	11	8	3	5	6
06	Montenegro	7	15	16	6	7	9	2	17
07	Finland	11	11	9	8	12	10	1	8	3
08	Azerbaijan	8	16	6	7	6	7	4	1	12
09	Portugal	3	8	4	4	2	4	7	4	7
10	Greece	10	17	5	14	10	12		11
11	Poland	5	4	2	2	4	3	8	3	8
12	Moldova	9	5	10	5	5	5	6	2	10
13	Iceland	17	6	13	11	8	11		13
14	Czech Republic
15	Cyprus	4	3	7	12	15	6	5	7	4
16	Armenia	12	12	11	15	13	15		6	5
17	Slovenia	15	7	12	17	9	13		10	1
18	Latvia	16	10	17	16	14	17		14

Split voting results from the Czech Republic (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		J. Sidovský	E. Stoilow	E. Mraz	K. Říhová	K. Hodr	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	11	13	26	13	8	14		13
02	Poland	12	12	6	12	9	10	1	12
03	Belarus	20	8	11	8	20	12		8	3
04	Austria	8	6	13	6	10	7	4	24
05	Armenia	18	22	12	22	26	21		9	2
06	Netherlands	2	3	1	3	6	3	8	19
07	Moldova	6	7	5	7	21	8	3	6	5
08	Hungary	24	24	17	24	22	25		11
09	Italy	17	17	18	17	5	15		10	1
10	Denmark	5	5	4	5	23	5	6	25
11	Portugal	1	1	3	1	1	1	12	3	8
12	Azerbaijan	15	14	8	14	18	13		2	10
13	Croatia	26	23	10	23	24	24		17
14	Australia	3	2	2	2	3	2	10	21
15	Greece	16	21	24	21	19	22		23
16	Spain	23	25	19	25	11	23		26
17	Norway	22	15	25	15	12	17		20
18	United Kingdom	14	10	7	10	2	6	5	18
19	Cyprus	10	20	23	20	17	18		16
20	Romania	21	26	21	26	25	26		5	6
21	Germany	13	16	16	16	15	16		22
22	Ukraine	25	18	22	18	14	20		4	7
23	Belgium	9	11	15	11	13	11		7	4
24	Sweden	4	4	9	4	4	4	7	14
25	Bulgaria	7	9	14	9	7	9	2	1	12
26	France	19	19	20	19	16	19		15

References

1. "Czech Republic Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
2. Jiandani, Sanjay (30 September 2013). "Eurovision 2014: Czech Republic will not participate in Copenhagen". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
3. Vasilyev, Mikhail (15 February 2017). "Eurovision 2017: Jazz musician Martina Bárta will represent the Czech Republic in Kyiv". wiwibloggs.com. Wiwibloggs. Archived from the original on 5 May 2017. Retrieved 7 May 2017.
4. Herbert, Emily (21 February 2017). "CZECH REPUBLIC: MARTINA TO PERFORM "MY TURN"". eurovoix.com. Eurovoix.
5. Granger, Anthony (7 March 2017). "CZECH REPUBLIC: MARTINA BÁRTA REVEALS "MY TURN"". eurovoix.com. Eurovoix.
6. Granger, Anthony (13 March 2017). "CZECH REPUBLIC: "MY TURN" OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO RELEASED". eurovoix.com. Eurovoix.
7. Kavaler, Ron (22 March 2017). "ISRAEL CALLING! EUROVISION PROMO EVENT SET FOR APRIL 3 TO 6". wiwibloggs.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
8. Laufer, Gil (5 April 2017). "Tonight: Israel Calling 2017 to be held with 28 participating countries". esctoday.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
9. Jordan, Paul (29 March 2017). "Eurovision in Concert sets a new record with 33 acts". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
10. Fuster, Luis (1 April 2017). "MADRID CALLING! 19 ACTS WILL TAKE PART IN EUROVISION SPAIN PRE-PARTY". wiwibloggs.com. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
11. Jordan, Paul (25 January 2017). "Semi-Final Allocation draw to take place in Kyiv". eurovision.tv. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
12. Jordan, Paul (31 January 2017). "Results of the Semi-Final Allocation Draw". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
13. Jordan, Paul (31 March 2017). "Semi-Final running order for Eurovision 2017 revealed". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 3 May 2017.