Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015

Background

Prior to the 2015 Contest, Romania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest sixteen times since its first entry in 1994. Its highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been third place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 2005 with the song "Let Me Try" performed by Luminiţa Anghel and Sistem and in 2010 with the song "Playing with Fire" performed by Paula Seling and Ovi. To this point, Romania has qualified to the final on every occasion since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004. In 2014, Paula Seling and Ovi represented the nation once again, this time performing the song "Miracle". The duo managed to place 12th in the final.

The Romanian broadcaster for the 2015 Contest, who broadcast the event in Romania and organised the selection process for its entry, was Televiziunea Română (TVR). Romania has consistently selected their entry for the contest through the national final Selecția Națională, as they also done this in 2015.

Selecția Națională 2015

Selecția Națională 2015 was the national final format developed by TVR in order to select Romania's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. The competition was organised by Iuliana Marciuc and Bogdan Ghiţulescu with Liana Stanciu selected as the head of the Romanian delegation for a second consecutive year. The winner of the national final was determine through the 50/50 combination of votes from a jury panel and a public televote. The competition was televised on TVR1, TVR HD and TVRi as well as streamed online through eurovision.tv, the broadcaster's streaming service TVR+ and YouTube.

Competing entries

TVR opened a submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries between 26 January 2015 and 8 February 2015. A total of 93 entries were received by the broadcaster by the end of the deadline, of which 79 were eligible for consideration. An expert committee reviewed the received submissions between 9 and 11 February 2015. Each juror on the committee rated each song between 1 (lowest) and 10 (highest). After the combination of the jury votes, the top twelve entries that scored the highest were selected for the national final. The competing entries were announced during a press conference on 12 February 2015. Among the competing artists was former Eurovision entrant Luminița Anghel, who represented Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005.

Final

The national final took place on 8 March 2015 at the Sala Polivalentă in Craiova, hosted by Alina Şerban and Andrei Boroşovici with Ioana Voicu and Florina Ghenescu hosting the green room. The winner was determined by the 50/50 combination of the votes from a five member jury panel and public televoting. Each member of the jury voted by assigning scores from 1–8, 10 and 12 points to their preferred songs. The summation of the jury points had produced an overall ranking that was converted to 1–8, 10 and 12 points. The members of the jury were Ovi (singer-songwriter, represented Romania in the 2010 and 2014 contests), Mihai Pocorschi (composer), Viorel Gavrilă (composer), Anca Lupeş (manager) and Bogdan Honciuc (journalist). The public had the opportunity to submit their vote during a 30 minute voting window where only one vote could be cast per phone number. The top ten songs as ranked by the televote received 1–8, 10 and 12 points. The winning entry, "De la capăt" performed by Voltaj, received the maximum amount of points from both jury and televote.

Preparation

In November 2014, Voltaj began a campaign in Romania with the release of "De la capăt", which intended to bring awareness to the children in Romania who have been left behind by their parents in order for their parents to work abroad and support their families. The campaign highlights the detrimental effect this has on children who grow up without their parents. The song was later entered into the Romanian national final as the band saw participating in the Eurovision Song Contest as an opportunity to showcase their message to the Romanians abroad on an international stage. The official video of the song features scenes from the 2013 Romanian short film Calea Dunarii directed by Sabin Dorohoi, which tells the story of a boy in a Romanian village on the Danube river trying to regain contact with his parents who work in Vienna.

Following Voltaj's win at the Romanian national final, the band focused on deciding which language to perform the song in at Eurovision. After considering both the Romanian language version "De la capăt" and the English language version "All Over Again", the band decided to perform the song in a bilingual mix of the two languages with the majority of the song remaining in Romanian, while the final chorus would be sung in English. The band's rational behind the language choice explained that performing in Romanian allowed for the song's message to reach its target audience, the three million Romanian migrants who had to leave their children behind, while adding an English chorus would allow an international audience to understand the message as well.

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (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. In the 2015 contest, Australia also competed directly in the final as an invited guest nation. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into five different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 26 January 2015, 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. Romania was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 19 May 2015, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.

Once all the competing songs for the 2015 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Romania was set to perform in position 15, following the entry from Albania and before the entry from Georgia.

All three shows were broadcast in Romania on TVR1, TVRi and TVR HD with commentary by Bogdan Stănescu. The Romanian spokesperson, who announced the Romanian votes during the final, was Sonia Argint Ionescu.

Semi-final

Voltaj took part in technical rehearsals on 12 and 15 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 18 and 19 May. This included the jury final where professional juries of each country, responsible for 50 percent of each country's vote, watched and voted on the competing entries.

The stage show featured the members of Voltaj dressed in black outfits designed by Florin Dobre and performing in a band set-up with several suitcases placed around the stage floor. The background LED screens displayed stacked intermodal containers with scenes from the official music video for the Romanian entry projected on their surfaces. The stage director that was part of the Romanian delegation, Daniel Klinger, stated: "It is all about the message of a song, especially because the guys perform their song in Romanian. The colour set up will be mostly black and white, but we will use some inserts from the video and show them in the background."

At the end of the show, Romania was announced as having finished in the top ten and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Romania placed fifth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 89 points.

Final

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winner's press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the order the countries were announced during the semi-final. Romania was drawn to compete in the second half. Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Romania was subsequently placed to perform in position 20, following the entry from Latvia and before the entry from Spain.

Voltaj once again took part in dress rehearsals on 22 and 23 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show. Voltaj performed a repeat of their semi-final performance during the final on 23 May. At the conclusion of the voting, Romania finished in fifteenth place with 35 points.

Voting

Voting during the three shows consisted of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent from a jury deliberation. The jury consisted of five music industry professionals who were citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member were released shortly after the grand final.

Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that Romania had placed twelfth with the public televote and twenty-first with the jury vote in the final. In the public vote, Romania scored 69 points, while with the jury vote, Romania scored 21 points. In the first semi-final, Romania placed fifth with the public televote with 93 points and eighth with the jury vote, scoring 64 points.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Romania and awarded by Romania in the first semi-final and grand final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows:

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Romanian jury: