Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Country	Romania
National selection
Selection process	Selectia Nationala
Selection date(s)	Semi-finals 9 February 2008 16 February 2008 Final 23 February 2008
Selected entrant	Nico & Vlad Miriţă
Selected song	"Pe-o margine de lume"
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (7th, 94 points)
Final result	20th, 45 points
Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2007 • 2008 • 2009►

Romania selected its Eurovision Song Contest 2008 through Selecţia Naţională, a national final consisting of two-semifinals and a final. The eventual winners were Nico and Vlad Miriţă with the dual-language Romanian/Italian "Pe-o margine de lume". Romania took part in the first semi-final on 20 May 2008, and qualified to compete in the final. The duet has begun their European promotional tour starting with the Greek national selection on February 27, 2008.

National final

The road to Romania's Eurovision entry commenced when the competition was opened in December 2007, allowing artists of any nationality to submit songs that would then be judged by an internal panel of experts.^[1] The panel shortlisted 24 songs, out of 282 submitted compositions, to compete in the national final. Four reserve songs were also chosen in case of any disqualifications or withdrawals before the first semifinal.^[2] The songs where then equally divided into two semi-finals in which the top 6 songs voted by a 50/50 jury-televote combination would proceed to the final evening on February 23, 2008.

The selection was notable for the number of foreign acts taking part. In particular, LaGaylia Frazier, Biondo, and Rednex were Swedish artists present in the competition. Also, Maya Slatinsek from Slovenia was originally selected to be part of the national final, however, she withdrew her song after being accepted to compete in the Irish national selection.^[3] In addition to foreign acts, former Eurovision participant Nicola entered once again with the prospect of representing Romania for a second time at Eurovision.

After two semi-finals on February 9 and February 16, 2008, twelve songs had qualified to the final round. However, some changes to the running order did occur. Cătălin Josan qualified both of his song to the final but decided to withdraw "When We're Together" from the contest in order to achieve a better result and not split his vote amongst both of his songs. TVR decided to enter Rednex feat. Ro-mania with "Railroad, railroad" into the contest as a replacement.^[4] Furthermore, VH2 also withdrew their song, "Follow Me" because of a possible plagiarism claim.^[5] New Effect feat. Gentiana was in line to replace them in the national final, however, they were not available to compete due to prior engagements. After running through the non-qualified entries, Yana and "C'est la vie" were given a chance to enter the final.^[6]

Semifinal 1

The first semifinal took place on February 9 and aired on TVR 1 & TVRi from 19.15 to 21.00 CET. The group Yana qualified because the songs placed higher turned down the offer to replace VH2's withdrawn entry from the second semi-final.

Draw	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Nico & Vlad Mirita	Pe-o margine de lume	284	1
2	Inesa	La storia della pioggia	89	11
3	Adrian Enache	Te Iubesc	114	8
4	LaGaylia Frazier	Dr. Frankenstein	174	5
5	New Effect feat. Gentiana	Zamira	119	7
6	Tabasco	Love Is All I Need	170	6
7	Cătălin Josan	When We're Together	217	3
8	Daniela Nicol	Why	112	10
9	Yana	C'est la Vie	113	9
10	Leo Iorga & Pacifica	Prea mici sunt cuvintele	206	4
11	Ana Mardare & Irvin Doomes	Heaven	87	12
12	Simona Nae	The Key of Life	229	2

Semifinal 2

The second semifinal took place on February 16 and aired on TVR 1 & TVR i from 19.15 to 21.00 CET. Rednex feat. Ro-mania qualified because Cătălin Josan withdrew his other song in the first semi-final from the competition.

Draw	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Monique	Vânt de vară	45	12
2	Lucia Dumitrescu	Dragostea Mea	99	9
3	Nico	Fight For Life	119	8
4	Nicola	Fairytale Story	206	3
5	Zero	Come This Way	189	5
6	Rednex feat. Ro-mania	Railroad, Railroad	158	7
7	VH2	Follow Me	186	6
8	Viper	Mas Conmigo	63	11
9	Cătălin Josan	Run Away	206	4
10	Imba	Yeke, Yeke	95	10
11	Biondo	Shine	278	1
12	Paula Seling & Provincialii	Seven Days	228	2

Final

The final took place on February 23 and aired on TVR 1 & TVR i from 19.15 to 22.00 CET.

Draw	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Leo Iorga & Pacifica	Prea mici sunt cuvintele	164	6
2	Zero	Come This Way	181	5
3	Paula Seling & Provincialii	Seven Days	208	3
4	Nicola	Fairytale Story	162	7
5	Tabasco	Love Is All I Need	126	8
6	Rednex feat. Ro-mania	Railroad, Railroad	96	9
7	LaGaylia Frazier	Dr. Frankenstein	93	10
8	Biondo	Shine	264	2
9	Cătălin Josan	Run Away	197	4
10	Simona Nae	The Key of Life	73	11
11	Yana	C'est la Vie	37	12
12	Nico & Vlad Mirita	Pe-o margine de lume	271	1

At Eurovision

Romania qualified from Semi Final 1 to the Final. In the final they performed in 1st position, before United Kingdom where they picked up 45 points.

Points Awarded by Romania^[7]

Semi final 12 points  Greece 10 points  Moldova 8 points  Russia 7 points  Azerbaijan 6 points  Israel 5 points  Armenia 4 points  Norway 3 points  Netherlands 2 points  Poland 1 point  Slovenia

Final 12 points  Greece 10 points  Russia 8 points  Turkey 7 points  Serbia 6 points  Israel 5 points  Norway 4 points  Armenia 3 points  Ukraine 2 points  Azerbaijan 1 point  Croatia

Points Awarded to Romania (Semi-Final 1)

12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Moldova		Greece  Israel  Spain	Ireland	Andorra  Azerbaijan  Belgium  San Marino  Slovenia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Armenia  Norway		Germany  Netherlands  Poland		Finland  Russia

Points Awarded to Romania (Final)

12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Moldova  Spain				Israel
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
	France  Portugal	Cyprus  Ireland		San Marino

See also

• Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest
• Eurovision Song Contest 2008

References

1. "Romania: TVR confirms 23rd February for final". Esctoday (English)
2. "TVR announced the 24 songs". Esctoday (English)
3. "Maja drops Romania for Ireland". Esctoday (English)
4. "Romania: Catalin withdraws song, Rednex in final". Esctoday (English)
5. "VH2 replaced by New Effect feat. Genţiana". Esctoday (English)
6. "Romania: Zamira is out, in and out again". Esctoday (English)
7. Eurovision Song Contest 2008