Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Finland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. Their entry was selected using their national final Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019 (Contest for New Music 2019) on 2 March 2019, where all three entries were performed by DJ Darude along with singer Sebastian Rejman, who were selected by the Finnish national public broadcaster Yle on 29 January 2019 to perform the nation's entry at the 2019 contest. "Look Away" won the Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu and was the Finnish entry in the Eurovision 2019, in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Eurovision Song Contest 2019
Country	Finland
National selection
Selection process	Artist: Internal Selection Song: Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019
Selection date(s)	2 March 2019
Selected entrant	Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman
Selected song	"Look Away"
Selected songwriter(s)	Sebastian Rejman Ville Virtanen
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Failed to qualify (17th, 23 points)
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2018 • 2019 • 2020►

Background

Prior to the 2019 Contest, Finland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-two times since their first entry in 1961.[1] Finland has won the contest once in 2006 with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" performed by Lordi. In the 2018 contest, "Monsters" performed by Saara Aalto qualified Finland to the final. The song finished in 25th place with 46 points.

The Finnish national broadcaster, Yleisradio (Yle), broadcasts the event within Finland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Yle confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest on 13 September 2018.[2] Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest have been selected through national final competitions that have varied in format over the years. Between 1961 and 2011, a selection show that was often titled Euroviisukarsinta highlighted that the purpose of the program was to select a song for Eurovision. However, since 2012, the broadcaster has organised the selection show Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), which focuses on showcasing new music with the winning song being selected as the Finnish contest entry for that year. Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster also announced that the Finnish entry for the 2019 contest would be selected through Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019, with the rules of previous year.[3]

Before Eurovision

Artist selection

Yle announced that they had internally selected Darude and Sebastian Rejman to represent Finland in Tel Aviv during a live streamed press conference on 29 January 2019, hosted by 2013 Finnish Eurovision entrant Krista Siegfrids, Mikko Silvennoinen and Christoffer Strandberg.[4] In the press conference, the broadcaster also announced that their contest entry would be selected through Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019 with three songs competing. The competing songs along with their promotional music videos were presented on 8, 15 and 22 February 2019, respectively.[5]

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2019 was the eighth edition of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the music competition that selects Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition consisted of one final on 2 March 2019, held at the Logomo in Turku and hosted by Krista Siegfrids, Mikko Silvennoinen and Christoffer Strandberg. The show was broadcast on Yle TV2 and online at yle.fi/umk as well as via radio with commentary in Swedish by Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos on Yle X3M.[6] Three songs, all performed by Darude and Sebastian Rejman, competed and "Look Away" was selected as the winning song by a 50/50 combination of public votes and eight international jury groups from the United Kingdom, Norway, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Israel. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 240 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through the following voting methods: telephone, SMS and online voting. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 240 points rounded to the nearest integer: 24 points.

Final – 2 March 2019
Draw	Song	Songwriter(s)	Jury	Televote	Total	Place
1	"Release Me"	Ville Virtanen, Jaakko Manninen, Brandyn Burnette	70	19	89	3
2	"Superman"	Ville Virtanen, Chris Hope, Thom Bridges	74	73	147	2
3	"Look Away"	Sebastian Rejman, Ville Virtanen	96	148	244	1

Detailed International Jury Votes
Draw	Song									Total
1	"Release Me"	8	8	10	10	10	8	8	8	70
2	"Superman"	10	10	8	8	8	10	10	10	74
3	"Look Away"	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	12	96
International Jury Spokespersons
– William Lee Adams – JOWST – Ana Maria Bordas – Jan Bors – Gabriel Alares – Michael Kealy – Emmelie de Forest – Tali Eshkoli

Promotion

Darude & Sebastian made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Look Away" as the Finnish Eurovision entry. On 6 April, they performed at the Eurovision in Concert event in Amsterdam, hosted by Cornald Maas and Marlayne, to over 4500 spectators.[7] On 14 April, they performed at the London Eurovision Party at the Café de Paris venue in London, which was hosted by Nicki French and Paddy O'Connell.[8] At the event, they also performed "Superman", the runner-up entry from the national selection. They are also scheduled to perform at the Eurovision Pre-Party Madrid on 20 April.

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 2019, 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. Finland was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.[9]

Once all the competing songs for the 2019 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. Finland was set to perform in position 3, following the entry from Montenegro and preceding the entry from Poland.[10] Finland failed to qualify from the semi-final.[11]

Semi-final

Finland performed third in the first semi-final, following the entry from Montenegro and preceding the entry from Poland. At the end of the show, Finland was not announced among the top 10 entries in the first semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Finland placed last (seventeenth) in the semi-final, receiving a total of 23 points: 14 points from the televoting and 9 points from the juries.

Voting

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results will be released shortly after the grand final.[12]

Points awarded to Finland

Points awarded to Finland (Semi-final 1)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Estonia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
			Iceland
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
	Greece		Australia  Spain	Poland

Points awarded by Finland

Semi-final 1 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Iceland  Australia 10 points  Estonia  Poland 8 points  Australia  Czech Republic 7 points  Slovenia  Greece 6 points  Poland  Estonia 5 points  Czech Republic  Slovenia 4 points  San Marino  Iceland 3 points  Portugal  Serbia 2 points  Hungary  Belgium 1 point  Serbia  Hungary

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Iceland  Sweden 10 points  Norway  Australia 8 points  Estonia  Netherlands 7 points  Sweden  North Macedonia 6 points  Australia  Slovenia 5 points  Netherlands  Italy 4 points  Russia  Czech Republic 3 points  Italy   Switzerland 2 points   Switzerland  Azerbaijan 1 point  Slovenia  Malta

Split voting results

The following five members composed the Finnish jury:[12]

• Susanna Vainiola – Chairperson – music journalist, radio DJ
• Eva Louhivuori – musician
• Lasse Wikman – singer, songwriter, lyricist
• Samuli Sirviö – producer, songwriter, musician
• Janne Hyöty – songwriter, composer, producer, musician

Split voting results from Finland (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		E. Louhivuori	L. Wikman	S. Sirviö	S. Vainiola	J. Hyöty	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	13	11	15	16	6	12		14
02	Montenegro	15	13	14	14	16	16		16
03	Finland
04	Poland	1	6	2	2	12	2	10	5	6
05	Slovenia	10	15	3	5	3	6	5	4	7
06	Czech Republic	3	3	5	3	7	3	8	6	5
07	Hungary	4	8	9	11	5	10	1	9	2
08	Belarus	7	14	12	13	13	14		12
09	Serbia	9	2	7	12	9	8	3	10	1
10	Belgium	11	7	11	1	15	9	2	11
11	Georgia	12	10	13	15	8	13		15
12	Australia	2	4	1	4	1	1	12	3	8
13	Iceland	5	9	10	6	4	7	4	1	12
14	Estonia	6	1	6	8	10	5	6	2	10
15	Portugal	8	12	8	9	14	11		8	3
16	Greece	14	5	4	7	2	4	7	13
17	San Marino	16	16	16	10	11	15		7	4

Split voting results from Finland (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		E. Louhivuori	L. Wikman	S. Sirviö	S. Vainiola	J. Hyöty	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Malta	11	16	15	3	17	10	1	22
02	Albania	21	22	23	15	26	23		19
03	Czech Republic	10	10	8	9	6	7	4	15
04	Germany	15	19	6	21	21	18		26
05	Russia	23	9	12	20	5	14		7	4
06	Denmark	18	12	10	10	14	17		11
07	San Marino	25	26	24	26	25	26		14
08	North Macedonia	6	8	4	18	4	4	7	17
09	Sweden	3	3	2	1	1	1	12	4	7
10	Slovenia	7	20	5	6	11	5	6	10	1
11	Cyprus	24	23	22	25	18	24		21
12	Netherlands	2	2	3	7	3	3	8	6	5
13	Greece	17	7	21	11	8	15		24
14	Israel	19	14	7	23	22	19		20
15	Norway	13	6	18	22	10	16		2	10
16	United Kingdom	14	18	20	17	13	20		25
17	Iceland	12	11	9	12	7	12		1	12
18	Estonia	20	5	17	13	9	13		3	8
19	Belarus	22	24	25	24	20	25		23
20	Azerbaijan	8	15	11	4	12	9	2	16
21	France	16	17	13	16	19	21		13
22	Italy	5	25	19	2	24	6	5	8	3
23	Serbia	9	4	16	14	15	11		18
24	Switzerland	4	21	14	5	16	8	3	9	2
25	Australia	1	1	1	8	2	2	10	5	6
26	Spain	26	13	26	19	23	22		12

References

1. "Finland Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
2. "Finland announces date of UMK 2019 final, show will involve only one artist". wiwibloggs. 13 September 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
3. "Finland announces date of UMK 2019 final, show will involve only one artist". wiwibloggs. 13 September 2018. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
4. "Finland: It's Darude to Tel Aviv!". esctoday.com. 29 January 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
5. "It's Darude for Finland this year!". eurovision.tv. Retrieved 29 January 2019.
6. "Näin äänestät UMK19: Darude -show:ssa suosikkikappalettasi - lataa yle.fi-sovellus kännykkääsi!". Yle (in Finnish). 27 February 2019. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
7. "This was Eurovision in Concert 2019 in Amsterdam". Eurovision.tv. 6 April 2019.
8. "18 Eurovision acts to perform in London on Sunday 14 A[p]ril". Eurovision.tv. 13 April 2019.
9. Jordan, Paul (28 January 2019). "Eurovision 2019: Which country takes part in which Semi-Final?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
10. "Exclusive: This is the Eurovision 2019 Semi-Final running order!". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
11. "Suomi putosi jatkosta Euroviisuissa: "Harmittaa vietävästi"". hs.fi. Helsingin Sanomat. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
12. Groot, Evert (30 April 2019). "EExclusive: They are the judges who will vote in Eurovision 2019!". Eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2019.

External links

• Official Yle Eurovision site