Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

The Belarusian national final Nationalny Otbor took place on 7 March 2019. Ten songs participated in the competition and the winner was selected exclusively via a jury. The show was broadcast on Belarus 1, Belarus 24 and Radius FM as well as online via the broadcaster's official website tvr.by.

Artists and composers were able to submit their applications and entries to the broadcaster between 23 January 2019 and 31 January 2019. At the closing of the deadline, 113 entries were received by the broadcaster. Auditions were held on 4 February 2019 at the BTRC "600 Metrov" studio where a jury panel was tasked with selecting up to fifteen entries to proceed to the televised national final. The auditions were webcast online at the official BTRC website.[3] The jury consisted of Alyona Lanskaya, Teo, German, Angelina Mikulskaya, Evgeny Perlin, Andrey Kalina, Elena Atrashkevich, Olga Vronskaya, Igor Melnikov, Valery Prigun and Vasily Golovan. Ten finalists were selected and announced on 4 February 2019.

The televised final took place on 7 March 2019 at the "600 Metrov" studio in Minsk, hosted by Olga Ryzhikova and 2014 Belarusian Eurovision contestant Teo. Prior to the competition, a draw for the running order took place on 5 February 2019.[4] The votes of seven jury members made up of music professionals exclusively selected the song "Like It" performed by Zena as the winner. Each jury member assigned scores to each song ranging from 1 (lowest score) to 10 (highest score) immediately after the artists conclude their performance. The jury consisted of Elena Atrashkevich, Tatyana Drobysheva, Valery Prigun, Dmitry Koldun, Aleks David, Gleb Davidov and Yana Stankevich.[5]

Zena made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Like It" as the Belarusian Eurovision entry. On 6 April, she performed during the Eurovision in Concert event at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, hosted by Cornald Maas and Marlayne, to over 4,500 spectators.[6] Zena also performed during the London Eurovision Party in London on 14 April at the Café de Paris venue, which was hosted by Nicki French and Paddy O'Connell.[7]

Belarus performed eighth in the first semi-final, following the entry from Hungary and preceding the entry from Serbia. At the end of the show, Belarus was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Belarus placed tenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 122 points: 44 points from the televoting and 78 points from the juries.

In the final, Belarus performed 19th, following the entry from Estonia and preceding the entry from Azerbaijan. At the end of the show, Belarus placed 24th out of 26 countries, receiving a total of 31 points: 13 points from the televoting and 18 points from the juries.

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry 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 was permitted to 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 as well as the nation's televoting results will be released shortly after the grand final.[10]

The Belarusian jury was fired after the first semi-final for partially revealing their results early and was not replaced by another jury. The "jury" vote for the final was an average of the jury votes of other countries with similar voting records. Due to an error by tabulators Digame and Ernst & Young, the wrong jury vote was presented during the live broadcast and the bottom 10 countries in the aggregate were incorrectly awarded the Belarusian points. The erroneous votes were: Australia 1, Iceland 2, Serbia 3, San Marino 4, United Kingdom 5, Spain 6, Norway 7, Germany 8, Estonia 10 and Israel 12 points. Several days after the broadcast, the EBU corrected the Belarusian jury votes, which are reflected in the table below.[11]

The following members comprised the Belarusian jury:[10]

• Valeriy Prigun (jury chairperson) – singer
• Anastasiya Tikhanovitch – singer, producer
• Artsem Mikhalenka – singer, TV host, represented Belarus in the 2010 contest as member of 3+2
• Anzhela Mikulskaya – TV producer
• Olga Rizhikova – singer, TV host, songwriter

Detailed voting results from Belarus (Semi-final 1)[12]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		A. Tikhanovitch	A. Mikhalenka	V. Prigun	A. Mikulskaya	O. Rizhikova	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Cyprus	5	10	7	6	5	7	4	13
02	Montenegro	12	11	11	14	15	13		16
03	Finland	13	15	16	15	16	16		15
04	Poland	10	3	5	5	4	5	6	6	5
05	Slovenia	15	12	14	13	10	14		3	8
06	Czech Republic	8	4	4	4	3	4	7	8	3
07	Hungary	4	14	9	9	9	9	2	11
08	Belarus
09	Serbia	9	13	13	12	13	12		7	4
10	Belgium	16	5	12	16	12	11		12
11	Georgia	1	9	2	2	2	2	10	10	1
12	Australia	7	1	3	3	7	3	8	2	10
13	Iceland	11	6	10	11	14	10	1	1	12
14	Estonia	6	2	1	1	1	1	12	5	6
15	Portugal	14	16	15	10	11	15		9	2
16	Greece	2	7	6	7	6	6	5	14
17	San Marino	3	8	8	8	8	8	3	4	7