Country Croatia Selection date(s) 7 March 1999 Selected song "Marija Magdalena" | Selection process Dora 1999 Selected entrant Doris Dragović Final result 4th, 118 points | |
Croatia competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999, held in Jerusalem, Israel. The Croatian entry for the contest was Doris Dragović with the song "Marija Magdalena".
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The Croatian broadcater Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT) held a national final, Dora, to select the Croatian entry for the contest.
Dora 1999
The 1999 edition of Dora was held on 7 March at the HRT TV studios in Zagreb, hosted by Oliver Mlakar and Vlatka Pokos. 24 songs competed, with the winner decided by 21 juries, 20 regional juries and a 21st jury made up of televoting results.
The winner of the contest was Doris Dragović with "Marija Magdalena". Dragović had previously represented Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, at the 1986 contest with the song "Željo moja".
At Eurovision 1999
On the night of the contest Dragović performed 4th, following Spain and preceding the United Kingdom. The song received 118 points at the close of the voting, placing 4th of 23 countries competing. This was, and still is as of 2013, Croatia's joint-best placing at the contest, sharing with Croatia's 1996 entry, "Sveta ljubav" with Maja Blagdan.
After the contest, the European Broadcasting Union (BU), the organizers of the contest, were forced to reduce Croatia's score to 79 for the calculation of the country's five-year average score, used to relegate countries from the next contest. This was due to the use of synthesised male vocals on the backing track, which the EBU said broke the "spirit of the rule" in which no live vocals could be featured on backing tracks. However, overall, the original score remained the same.