Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004

Eurovision Song Contest 2004
Country	Bosnia and Herzegovina
National selection
Selection process	Artist: Internal selection Song: BH Eurosong 2004
Selection date(s)	Artist: 15 January 2004 Song: 6 March 2004
Selected entrant	Deen
Selected song	"In the Disco"
Selected songwriter(s)	Vesna Pisarović
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (7th, 133 points)
Final result	9th, 91 points
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2003 • 2004 • 2005►

Bosnia and Herzegovina was represented by Deen and the song "In the Disco" in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The song was written by Vesna Pisarović, who represented the Croatia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 in Tallinn with her song 'Everything I want'.

Deen, whose real name is Fuad Backović, was the lead singer of the boyband 'Seven Up' who came third in the Bosnian national final of 1999. Deen ended 7th in the National Final of 2001 and 2nd in the National Final of 2003. The 21-year-old singer was born in Sarajevo and studied at the Faculty of Economy.

Before Eurovision[]

Artist selection[]

On 28 December 2003, PBSBiH opened the submission period for artists to submit their applications up until 9 January 2004.^[1] Only artists that have Bosnian citizenship, had at least two live performances and that had released at least three songs were eligible for consideration. At the closing of the deadline, 5 valid applications out of 7 were received by PBSBiH.^[2] On 15 January 2004, the broadcaster announced that they had internally selected Deen to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina in Istanbul.^[3] The twenty-one member selection committee that selected the artist consisted of:^[4]

BH Eurosong 2004[]

The song to be performed by Deen at the contest was selected through a national final entitled BH Eurosong 2004. Following the artist announcement on 15 January 2004, PBSBiH opened the submission period for composers to submit their entries up until 6 February 2004. Songs could be submitted in any language, however composers were required to have Bosnian citizenship.^[5] At the closing of the deadline, 32 submissions were received by PBSBiH. A selection committee selected six songs for the competition, which were announced on 11 February 2004.^[6] The song "Pridi bliže", written by Andrej Babić, was later disqualified from the competition as Babić did not have Bosnian citizenship.^[7]

The final took place on 6 March 2004 at the PBSBiH studios in Sarajevo, hosted by Ana Vilenica and Enis Bešlagić and broadcast on BHTV 1, Hayat TV and BH Radio 1. All participating songs were performed by Deen and a 50/50 combination of votes from an eleven-member jury panel and public televoting selected "In the Disco" as the winning song. For the public vote, voting was open from 2 March 2004 to 6 March 2004.^[8] The jury panel consisted of Vesna Arapović (music professor and director of children's choir "Pavarotti"), Ivan Čavlović (music professor), Samir Čulić (journalist, DJ and music editor), Ferida Duraković (professor and translator), Marin Gradac (music professor and music editor), Miroslav Kenjalović (Dean of Academy of Arts at the University of Banja Luka), Slobodan Bodo Kovačević (guitarist and architect), Tijana Vignjević (conductor and music professor), Vesna Andree-Zaimović (BH Eurosong 2004 director), Ninoslav Verber (music professor and PBSBiH President of Musical Production) and Deen.^[2]

At Eurovision[]

At Eurovision, Deen created a disco out of the Istanbul stage. A disco ball stage prop was mounted on the ceiling of the venue and lower down during Deen's presentation. The performance contained elaborate choreography and dancers who wore very little clothing. Everyone was dressed in either pink, purple, or blue and Deen wore a disco ball earring. The performance contained attention grabbing shots.

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. Because Bosnia and Herzegovina placed 16th at the 2003 contest , Deen was forced to compete in the first Eurovision semi-final, held on 12 May 2004. He performed 21st, following Serbia and Montenegro and preceding the Netherlands country qualified to the final, placing 7th in the semi-final and scoring 133 points.^[9] At the final on 15 May, he performed 12th following Croatia and preceding the Belgium which led to a score of 91 points placing Bosnia in the 9th position, meaning that Bosnia and Herzegovina automatically qualified for the final in the 2005 contest.^[10]

Voting[]

Points awarded to Bosnia and Herzegovina[]

Points awarded to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Semi-final)[11] Score Country 12 points  Denmark  Norway 10 points  Albania  Austria  Croatia  Slovenia  Sweden  Turkey 8 points  Netherlands   Switzerland 7 points  Germany  Ireland  Serbia and Montenegro 6 points 5 points  Macedonia 4 points  United Kingdom 3 points  Belgium 2 points 1 point

Points awarded to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Final)[12] Score Country 12 points 10 points  Albania  Croatia  Norway  Slovenia 8 points  Denmark  Sweden 7 points  Austria  Turkey 6 points  Serbia and Montenegro 5 points   Switzerland 4 points  Macedonia  Monaco 3 points 2 points  Netherlands 1 point

Points awarded by Bosnia and Herzegovina[]

Points awarded by Bosnia and Herzegovina (Semi-final)[11] Score Country 12 points  Serbia and Montenegro 10 points  Croatia 8 points  Macedonia 7 points  Ukraine 6 points  Albania 5 points  Greece 4 points  Malta 3 points  Denmark 2 points  Netherlands 1 point  Slovenia

Points awarded by Bosnia and Herzegovina (Final)[12] Score Country 12 points  Serbia and Montenegro 10 points  Croatia 8 points  Macedonia 7 points  Turkey 6 points  Ukraine 5 points  Greece 4 points  Albania 3 points  Germany 2 points  Sweden 1 point  Malta

References[]