Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Eurovision Song Contest 2020
Country	Moldova
National selection
Selection process	Finala națională 2020
Selection date(s)	29 February 2020
Selected entrant	Natalia Gordienko
Selected song	"Prison"
Selected songwriter(s)	Dimitris Kontopoulos Philipp Kirkorov Sharon Vaughn
Finals performance
Final result	Contest cancelled
Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2019 • 2020 • 2021►

Moldova originally planned to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. However, due to 2019-20 pandemic of Coronavirus, the contest was cancelled.

Background[]

Prior to the 2020 Contest, Moldova had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifteen times since its first entry in 2005.^[1] The nation's best placing in the contest was third, which it achieved in 2017 with the song "Hey Mamma!" performed by SunStroke Project. To this point, Moldova have achieved another three top-ten placings at the contest, with Zdob și Zdub placing sixth with "Boonika bate doba" in 2005, Natalia Barbu placing tenth in 2007 with "Fight" and DoReDoS in 2018 performing "My Lucky Day", also placing tenth. In 2019, Moldova was represented by Anna Odobescu with the song "Stay". The country failed to qualify placed 12th in semi-final.

For the 2020 Contest, the Moldovan national broadcaster, Teleradio-Moldova (TRM), broadcast the event within Moldova and organise the selection process for the nation's entry.

Before Eurovision[]

Finala națională 2020[]

Finala națională 2020 was the national final format developed by TRM in order to select Moldova's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. The event took place at the TRM Studio 2 in Chișinău, hosted by Elena Băncilă, Iurie Gologan and Doina Stimpovschii with Daniela Crudu reporting from the green room, and included a final to be held on 29 February 2020. The show was broadcast on Moldova 1, Radio Moldova Actualități, Radio Moldova Tineret and Radio Moldova Muzical as well as online via the broadcaster's official website trm.md.

Format[]

The selection of the competing entries for the national final and ultimately the Moldovan Eurovision entry took place over two rounds. The first round was a live audition of the received submissions in front of a jury panel that took place on 1 February 2020. Entries were assessed on criteria such as voice quality, stage presence and strength of the composition. The panel selected 10 finalists to proceed to the second round, the televised national final. 10 finalists competed in the final on 29 February 2020 where the winner was selected by the 50/50 combination of an expert jury vote and a public televote. In the event of a tie, the entry that receives the highest score from the expert jury vote was declared the winner.

Competing entries[]

Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries between 27 December 2019 and 17 January 2020. International artists were allowed to compete only if they were part of a duo or group where 50% of the lead vocalists were of Moldovan nationality. Songwriters could hold any nationality.^[2] At the conclusion of the submission deadline, 35 valid entries were received by the broadcaster. Che-MD and Irina Revenco were disqualified from the competition as their song "Adio" had been published and performed publicly prior to 1 September 2019.^[3][4]

The live audition round took place on 1 February 2020 at the TRM Studio in Chișinău, broadcast on Moldova 2 as well as online via trm.md and via TRM's Facebook and YouTube pages, where 20 finalists were selected to advance. The jury panel that evaluated the songs during the live auditions and selected the 10 finalists consisted of Anatol Chiriac, Gabriela Tocari, Andriano Marian, Paul Gămurari and Mihai Agafiță.^[5] Diana Brescan and Liusia Znamensky did not attend the auditions and therefore their respective songs "Let's Go Together" and "Love No More" were disqualified.

On 29 February 2020, "Răspunde!" performed by 2008 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Geta Burlacu was withdrawn from the competition due to personal reasons. Among the finalists were 2006 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Natalia Gordienko, 2012 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Pasha Parfeny and 2012 Moldovan Junior Eurovision entrant Denis Midone.

Final[]

The final took place on 29 February 2020. Nineteen songs competed and the winner was selected based on the combination of a public televote and the votes of an expert jury. The jury that voted in the final included Anatol Chiriac, Ilona Stepan, Roman Burlaca, Victoria Tcacenco, Igor Rusu, Valeria Barbas and Eugen Boico. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2007 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Natalia Barbu and the Moldovan National Symphony Orchestra performed as guests.^[6] "Prison" performed by Natalia Gordienko was selected as the winner.

At Eurovision[]

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (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 2020, 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. Moldova was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 14 May 2020, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.^[8] However, due to 2019-20 pandemic of Coronavirus, the contest was cancelled.

In the Eurovision Song Celebration YouTube broadcast in place of the heats, it was revealed that the song would have performed 4th in Semi Final 2, having been preceded by Austria and preceding San Marino.^[9]

References[]