Moldova in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

O melodie pentru Europa 2017 was the national final format developed by TRM in order to select Moldova's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. The event included a semi-final and a final to be held on 24 and 25 February 2017, respectively.[3] All shows in the competition were broadcast on Moldova 1, Radio Moldova Actualități, Radio Moldova Tineret and Radio Moldova Muzical as well as online via the broadcaster's official website trm.md.

The selection of the competing entries for the national final and ultimately the Moldovan Eurovision entry took place over two rounds. The first round was a live audition of the received submissions in front of a jury panel that took place on 21 January 2017. Entries were assessed on criteria such as voice quality, stage presence and strength of the composition. The panel selected 14 semi-finalists to proceed to the second round, the televised national final. 14 semi-finalists competed in the semi-final on 24 February 2017. Eight songs qualified to the final from each semi-final; four of the qualifiers qualified based on the votes from an expert jury, while the remaining four qualifiers were the entries that achieved the highest televote scores from the remaining entries. The eight qualifying entries competed in the final on 25 February 2017 where the winner was selected by the 50/50 combination of an expert jury vote and a public televote. In the event of a tie, the entry that receives the highest score from the public televote was declared the winner.[3]

Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries between 12 December 2016 and 18 January 2017.[3] International artists were allowed to compete only if they were part of a duo or group where 50% of the lead vocalists were of Moldovan nationality. Songwriters could hold any nationality.[4] At the conclusion of the submission deadline, 40 valid entries were received by the broadcaster. The live audition round took place on 21 January 2017 at TRM Studio in Chișinău, broadcast on Moldova 2 as well as online via trm.md, where 14 semi-finalists were selected to advance. "Not Over You" performed by Maxim Zavidia was withdrawn from the competition and therefore did not attend the auditions. Shakya also did not attend the auditions and therefore his song "Beautiful Life" was disqualified.[5]

On 23 January 2017, "Mama" performed by Constantin Cobîlean was disqualified from the competition and replaced with the song "Never Give Up on Us" performed by Nadia Moșneagu as a Russian language version of the song had been performed on the Russian television series Glavnaya Stsena in 2015.[6][7] On 14 February, "Călător" performed by Boris Covali was withdrawn and replaced by Sergiu Pungă and his song "Ne-a fost iubirea un joc".[8] On 24 January, "Baby, Don't Cry" performed by Irina Kit was withdrawn and replaced with Samir Loghin and his song "Glow" after it was revealed that the chorus had similarities to the song "Bananza" by Akon.[9] Among the semi-finalists was 2010 Moldovan Eurovision entrant SunStroke Project.

The semi-final took place on 24 February 2017 at the TRM Studio in Chișinău, hosted by Liviu Gulica and Mihaela Cîrnov with Felicia Dunaf reporting from the green room.[10] Four songs qualified to the final based on the votes of an expert jury. The jury that voted in the semi-final included Anatol Chiriac (composer), Ilona Stepan (conductor), Iurie Mahovici (composer), Lidia Panfil (director), Valeria Barbas (composer, musicologist), Nicu Țărnă (singer) and Geta Burlacu (singer, 2008 Moldovan Eurovision entrant). An additional four qualifiers were selected by a public televote between the remaining non-qualifiers. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2014 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Cristina Scarlat, singer Stela Boţan and the groups DoReDoS and Cezara performed as guests.[11]

The final took place on 25 February 2017 at the TRM Studio in Chișinău, hosted by Liviu Gulica and Mihaela Cîrnov with Galina Timus reporting from the green room.[12] The eight songs that qualified from the preceding semi-final competed and the winner was selected based on the combination of a public televote and the votes of an expert jury. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2016 Moldovan Eurovision entrant Lidia Isac performed as a guest. "Hey Mamma" performed by SunStroke Project and "Discover Moldova" performed by Ethno Republic and Surorile Osoianu were tied for the first place with 22 points each but since SunStroke Project received the most votes from the public they were selected as the winner.

SunStroke Project made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Hey Mamma" as the Moldovan Eurovision entry. Between 3 and 6 April, they took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel where they performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Ha'teatron venue.[13][14] On 8 April, they performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the Melkweg venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Selma Björnsdóttir.[15] On 15 April, they performed during the Eurovision Spain Pre-Party, which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain.[16]

SunStroke Project took part in technical rehearsals on 30 April and 4 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 8 and 9 May. This included the jury show on 8 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries.

At the end of the show, Moldova was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. In the first semi-final, Moldova placed second with the public televote receiving 180 points and fourth with the jury vote with 111 points.[20]

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winners' 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 reverse order the countries appeared in the semi-final running order. Moldova was drawn to compete in the first half. After the completion of the second semifinal press conference, it was decided that Moldova would perform seventh in the grand final running order, following the entry from the Netherlands and preceding the entry from Hungary. At the close of voting, they finished in 3rd place in the combined ranking with 374 points, finishing in 8th place with the national juries (110 points) and 3rd place in the televote (264 points).[21] The result gave Moldova its best-ever placing, their previous record was the sixth place in their debut in 2005.

The following members comprised the Moldovan jury:[24]

• Nelly Ciobanu (jury chairperson) – singer, represented Moldova in the 2009 contest
• Eugen Doibani (Natan) – composer, singer, music producer
• Valeria Barbas – singer
• Angela Socolov – musician
• Paul Gamurari – composer (jury member in semi-final 1)
• Denis Zubov – music producer (jury member in the final)

Detailed voting results from Moldova (Semi-final 1)[22]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Natan	N. Ciobanu	V. Barbas	P. Gamurari	A. Socolov	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Sweden	3	2	8	3	2	3	8	10	1
02	Georgia	8	9	10	2	3	6	5	9	2
03	Australia	5	3	7	7	7	5	6	15
04	Albania	10	17	16	6	11	13		2	10
05	Belgium	13	15	6	12	14	12		12
06	Montenegro	16	16	17	17	17	17		3	8
07	Finland	7	10	4	14	12	8	3	16
08	Azerbaijan	6	12	3	9	15	7	4	1	12
09	Portugal	1	1	1	1	1	1	12	5	6
10	Greece	4	8	5	5	4	4	7	11
11	Poland	9	7	12	13	10	10	1	8	3
12	Moldova
13	Iceland	11	13	9	10	8	9	2	14
14	Czech Republic	15	14	14	11	6	14		17
15	Cyprus	14	6	15	15	13	15		4	7
16	Armenia	2	4	2	4	5	2	10	7	4
17	Slovenia	12	5	13	8	16	11		13
18	Latvia	17	11	11	16	9	16		6	5

Detailed voting results from Moldova (Final)[23]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		Natan	N. Ciobanu	V. Barbas	A. Socolov	D. Zubov	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	20	19	15	22	12	19		15
02	Poland	19	10	20	15	18	16		18
03	Belarus	7	8	17	7	9	8	3	10	1
04	Austria	12	5	11	11	10	9	2	24
05	Armenia	10	11	4	6	4	5	6	25
06	Netherlands	11	2	12	12	23	11		20
07	Moldova
08	Hungary	4	12	5	17	14	10	1	11
09	Italy	25	20	23	10	13	21		7	4
10	Denmark	15	9	19	20	15	15		21
11	Portugal	13	7	2	3	5	4	7	5	6
12	Azerbaijan	6	22	6	5	6	6	5	2	10
13	Croatia	21	25	22	25	24	25		19
14	Australia	9	15	8	8	7	7	4	17
15	Greece	8	13	10	14	21	13		4	7
16	Spain	14	18	25	24	22	23		22
17	Norway	5	23	9	13	11	12		14
18	United Kingdom	17	3	14	18	20	14		16
19	Cyprus	18	14	24	16	19	20		13
20	Romania	1	1	1	1	1	1	12	1	12
21	Germany	16	16	16	9	25	17		23
22	Ukraine	22	17	18	21	8	18		12
23	Belgium	23	24	13	19	17	22		9	2
24	Sweden	2	6	7	4	3	3	8	8	3
25	Bulgaria	3	4	3	2	2	2	10	3	8
26	France	24	21	21	23	16	24		6	5