The Belarusian national final took place on 31 January 2004. Fifteen songs participated in the competition and the winner was selected exclusively via a public vote. The show was broadcast on Belarus 1 and Radius FM.
Competing entries[]
Artists and composers were able to submit their applications and entries to the broadcaster until 14 December 2003. Songs could be performed in any language, however, a translation of the lyrics to English and Russian were required and at least part of each song had to be performed in English. At the closing of the deadline, 59 entries were received by the broadcaster. A jury panel was tasked with selecting fifteen entries to proceed to the televised national final. The jury consisted of four representatives of the Ministry of Culture, three representatives of the Ministry of Information and three representatives of BTRC.[1] The finalists were announced on 4 January 2004, however one of the selected finalists, "Kali chakra, a i luz" performed by Jur'ya, was disqualified due to not signing the contract for participation. They were later replaced by "Govorjat" performed by Adelina Petrosyan.[2]
The televised final took place on 31 January 2004 at the BTRC studios in Minsk, hosted by Larisa Gribaleva and Ales Kruglyakov. Prior to the competition, a draw for the running order took place on 22 January 2004.[3] The performances of the competing entries were filmed on 23 January 2004, and although their titles were in Russian, the majority were performed in English.[4] Public televoting and Internet voting selected the song "Moy galiley" performed by Aleksandra and Konstantin as the winner.
For the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, a semi-final round was introduced in order to accommodate the influx of nations that wanted to compete in the contest. As this was Belarus' debut, the country had to compete in the semi-final of the 2004 Contest, held on 12 May 2004. The duo performed second, after Finland and before Switzerland. They ended 19th with 10 points, failing to qualify for the Grand Final.[5]
Belarus
Ukraine
Iceland
