Country Romania Selected entrant Paula Seling & Ovi | Selection date(s) 6 March 2010 Selected song "Playing with Fire" | |
Selection process Selecţia Naţională 2010
50% Jury
50% Televoting Semi-final result Qualified (4th, 104 points) | ||
Romania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 and selected their entry through a national final, organised by TVR (Romanian Television Society).
Contents
Selecţia Naţională 2010
On 9 December TVR announced details on the Romanian national final, Selecţia Naţională 2010, with an open call for songs held from 9 November to 14 January. On 25 to 27 January a 15-member jury of composers, performers, press, radio professionals and television personalities would select between 12 and 15 songs to progress to a single televised show. New for 2010 is the introduction of the right for jury members to change the performing artists of each song. Should artists be changed they have between 28 January and 5 February to re-record the song.
TVR received 117 entries for the contest at the close of the submission period, of which 111 complied with contest rules. TVR announced the 16 finalists on 25 January, after there was an equal score in the lowest placings of the jury's list. The finalists included Luminita Anghel, the 2005 Romanian entry, last year's runner-up Cătălin Josan, participants in last year's contest Zero, four-time participant in Selecţia Naţională Paula Seling, and two time participant in the Norwegian national selection Melodi Grand Prix Ovi Martin.
TVR will record presentation videos for each entry between 6 and 19 February. These promotional videos will be broadcast from 20 February until 5 March in the lead up to the live contest on 6 March.
Regional juries will be introduced this year. The final results will be a 50/50 mix of televote and jury preferences. The televote was free of charge.
Calls for disqualification
Shortly after "Playing with Fire" won Selecţia Naţională 2010 there were reports that the song, performed by Paula Seling and Ovi, aka Ovi Cernăuţeanu, was registered in Norway as being co-written by a Norwegian composer, Simen Eriksrud, which would have broken TVR regulations as participants and songwriters must all be Romanian. This was followed by calls for the song to be disqualified and a new national final held to select another song. Eriksrud, also Ovi's producer, confirmed that Ovi was the only songwriter, with Eriksrud and Ovi only sharing publishing rights as his producer.
Marina Almasan, the Romanian Head of Delegation, confirmed on 11 March that Ovi was the only writer of the song, after consulting with TONO, the Norwegian copyright association, Ovi's record label, and the Romanian Copyright Office.
Promotion
Paula and Ovi are currently taking part in an extensive European promotion tour before Eurovision, promoting their Eurovision song "Playing with Fire", in March and April 2010. The duo's first locations were Chişinău, Moldova, where they appeared on the Muz-TV music channel, going on then to Belgium, Portugal and Greece. In between promotion the duo shot scenes in the medieval city of Alba Iulia in Romania and in Vienna, Austria for the music video of "Playing with Fire". The video employs 3D technology, the first such use of the technology in a Eurovision music video. The video was released in April 2010.
The duo's promotion continued into April, however due to the 2010 eruptions of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, Ovi was unable to leave his home in Norway after the closure of Norwegian airspace due to volcanic ash in the aftermath of the eruptions. As such, Paula toured by herself, giving TV appearances in Bulgaria and Macedonia. With the reopening of Norwegian airspace the duo were reunited in Turkey, where they appeared on the Beyaz Show talk show as well as a special Eurovision show, Eurovision 2010'a dogru (Towards Eurovision 2010) on TRT Müzik, appearing alongside the Greek entry Giorgos Alkaios and Friends. The duo will also perform together at the UK Eurovision Preview Party in London on 2 May.
At Eurovision
Romania competed in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 on 27 May, performing 10th on stage, following the Netherlands and preceding Slovenia. At the end of the voting Paula and Ovi had received 104 points, finishing 4th in the 19-song line-up and qualified for the final on 29 May.
At the final on 29 May Romania performed 19th on stage, following France and preceding Russia. At the end of the voting Paula and Ovi had received 162 points, finishing 3rd out of the 25 competing countries, matching Romania's best finish ever in the Eurovision Song Contest achieved in 2005.
After the EBU released the split results of the televoting and jury points from across Europe, it was revealed that Romania had finished third in the public televote in the second semi-final, behind Azerbaijan and Turkey. However Romania placed only 8th with the national juries, bringing their overall placing down. In the final however Romania only placed 6th in the public televote, but came 3rd with the national juries, bringing up their placing to 3rd overall.