Appearances 16 (8 finals) Best result 12th: 2006 | First appearance 1998 Worst result 16th SF: 2011, 2013 | |
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Member station Macedonian Radio Television National selection events Skopje Fest
1996
1998
2000
2002
2005
2008–2011
2015
Nacionalen Evrosong
2006–2007
Internal Selection
2004
2012–2014
2016–present | ||
Macedonia, presented in the contest as Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 16 times since its official debut in 1998. The country had attempted to participate in 1996, but failed to qualify from the audio-only qualifying round. Macedonia is one of the most unsuccessful countries in the contest, having failed to crack the Top 10 in the 8 appearances it has made in the final. Macedonia's best result in the contest is Elena Risteska's 12th place finish in 2006. Macedonia has failed to qualify from the semi-final round in eight of the last nine contests (2008–16), the exception being Kaliopi, who finished 13th in the 2012 final.
Contents
History
Macedonia's first appearance in the contest was in 1998. However, the country had already made efforts to enter the contest two years before at the Eurovision Song Contest 1996's pre-selection round, where it submitted its first song entry, "Samo ti" (Само ти) sung by Kaliopi, which failed to qualify to the final thus eliminating the nation from competing for the first time. Macedonia's efforts to enter the contest were again hindered in 1997, when another new system was introduced where countries with the lowest average scores over the previous four years were excluded from participating.
The country's best result was in 2006, when Elena Risteska sang "Ninanajna" (Нинанајна) in Athens, Greece and came 12th. Macedonia is the only country to have qualified from every semi-final from 2004 to 2007 (other countries have qualified for every final but due to them finishing in the top 10 the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-final). Despite never finishing in the top 10, their record of qualifying for every final was only broken in 2008, when the jury vote used in the semi-final chose Sweden as a finalist, despite Tamara, Vrčak and Adrian having come 10th in the televote and not saved by the jury. Since then, only in 2012 Macedonia have made the final.
Macedonian Radio-Television (MRT), which broadcasts the event, has used the Skopje Fest festival to select the national entry since the country's debut, although it made several changes in the national final format, so the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2012 national finals were organised outside the Skopje Festival.
Prior declaring independence in 1991, as a constituent country of SFR Yugoslavia, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia participated in the Yugoslav pre-selection called among the other Yugoslav federal units. Also, Macedonian composers wrote songs for candidates from other parts of Yugoslavia. However, the Macedonian entries never managed to win, and the SR Macedonia was among the few federal states never to send a Yugoslav entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. An exception occurred when Maja Odžaklievska won the Yugoslav competition in 1979, but she did not perform in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 due to the Yugoslavian decision not to participate that year.
Contestants
Voting history
As of 2016, Macedonia's voting history is as follows: