Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Eurovision Song Contest 2018
Eurovision Song Contest 2018
Country	Switzerland
National selection
Selection process	ESC 2018 –; die Entscheidungsshow
Selection date(s)	4 February 2018
Selected entrant	Zibbz
Selected song	"Stones"
Selected songwriter(s)	Corinne "Co" Gfeller; Stee Gfeller; Laurell Barker;
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Failed to qualify (13th)
Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest

Switzerland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The Swiss German speaking broadcaster Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) in collaboration with the other broadcasters part of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) organised a national final in order to select the Swiss entry for the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal.

Background

Prior to the 2018 contest, Switzerland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-eight times since its first entry in 1956.[1] Switzerland is noted for having won the first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Refrain" performed by Lys Assia. Their second and, to this point, most recent victory was achieved in 1988 when Canadian singer Céline Dion won the contest with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi". Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004, Switzerland had managed to participate in the final four times up to this point. In 2005, the internal selection of Estonian girl band Vanilla Ninja, performing the song "Cool Vibes", qualified Switzerland to the final where they placed 8th. Due to their successful result in 2005, Switzerland was pre-qualified to compete directly in the final in 2006. Between 2007 and 2010, the nation failed to qualify to the final after a string of internal selections. Since opting to organize a national final from 2011 onwards, Switzerland has managed to qualify to the final twice. In 2017, Switzerland failed to qualify to the final, placing 12th in the semi-final with the song "Apollo" performed by Timebelle. The last time they had qualified was in 2014.

The Swiss national broadcaster, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), broadcasts the event within Switzerland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. SRG SSR confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest on 30 June 2017.[2] Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster also announced that the Swiss entry for the 2018 contest would be selected through a revamped national final.[2] Switzerland has selected their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest through both national finals and internal selections in the past. Between 2005 and 2010, the Swiss entry was internally selected for the competition. Since 2011, the broadcaster has opted to organize a national final in order to select their entry.

Before Eurovision

ESC 2018 – die Entscheidungsshow

ESC 2018 – die Entscheidungsshow was the eighth edition of the Swiss national final format that selected Switzerland's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The show took place on 4 February 2018 at the SRF Studio 1 in Zürich, hosted by Sven Epiney. The show was televised on SRF zwei, RSI La 2 and RTS Deux. The competition was also streamed online at the respective official website of each Swiss broadcaster.[3]

Competing entries

SRG SSR opened a submission period between 1 September 2017 until 22 September 2017 for interested composers to submit their songs. Composers and lyricists of any nationality were able to submit songs; however those with a Swiss passport or residency were given priority.[4] In addition to the public submissions, a songwriting camp was held in Maur, during which 18 songs were created and 16 of which were submitted for the selection.[5] 670 songs were submitted following the submission deadline. A 20-member jury panel composed of music experts (producers, representatives of the music industry, musicians, journalists, etc.), Eurovision fans and television viewers evaluated the entry submissions received and selected six songs, which were then tested by their music producers with various artists to proceed to the second stage of the competition, the televised national final. The competing artists and songs were announced on 9 January 2018.[6]

Members of the Jury
Group	Members
Music experts	Alizé Oswald – Singer Barbara Berta – Singer, Swiss Eurovision Song Contest 1997 entrant Bettina Bendiner – Journalist Denise Vogel – Production coordinator Iris Moné – Singer, vocal coach Laurent Pavia – RTS Head of Music, Society and Culture Léonard Gogniat – Singer Michel Imhof – Journalist Peter Reber – Musician Tanya Gavrancic – Music promoter
Eurovision fans	Alain Pfammatter Angela Grande Florian Tusi Gian-Andri Paganini Pascal Marchev
Television viewers	Cedric Cassimo Igor Asner Renato Delcò Severin Marfurt Susanne Egloff

Final

ESC 2018 – die Entscheidungsshow took place on 4 February 2018. The combination of televoting (50%) and the votes of seven international juries (50%) selected "Stones" performed by Zibbz as the winner. In addition to the performances from the competing artists, Swiss Eurovision Song Contest 2017 entrants Timebelle opened the show with their song "Apollo". Singer Leticia Carvalho and the group Appenzeller Sängerfreunde performed the Portuguese Eurovision Song Contest 2017 winning song "Amar pelos dois" as the interval act.

*ESC 2018 – die Entscheidungsshow* – 4 February 2018
Draw	Artist	Song	Songwriter(s)	Jury	Televote	Total	Place
1	Zibbz	"Stones"	Corinne "Coco" Gfeller, Stee Gfeller, Laurell Barker	76	77	153	1
2	Angie Ott	"A Thousand Times"	Jonas Gladnikoff, Sara Ljunggren, Glen Vella	26	39	65	5
3	Naeman	"Kiss Me"	Kate Northrop, Eric Lumiere, Ken Berglund, Alejandro Reyes	14	19	33	6
4	Chiara Dubey	"Secrets and Lies"	Chiara Dubey, Janie Price, Jeroen Swinnen, Darcy Proper, Sally Herbert	22	44	66	4
5	Alejandro Reyes	"Compass"	Alejandro Reyes, Laurell Barker, Lars Christen	72	48	120	2
6	Vanessa Iraci	"Redlights"	Borislav Milanov, Joacim Bo Persson, Johan Alkenäs, Jessica Ashley Karpov, Jesse Saint John	42	25	67	3

Detailed International Jury Votes
Draw	Song								Total
1	"Stones"	12	8	10	10	12	12	12	76
2	"A Thousand Times"	6	6		8	6			26
3	"Kiss Me"				6			8	14
4	"Secrets and Lies"			6		8	8		22
5	"Compass"	8	10	12	12	10	10	10	72
6	"Redlights"	10	12	8			6	6	42
International Jury Spokespersons
Albania: Kleart Duraj Armenia: David Tserunyan France: Edoardo Grassi Germany: Christoph Pellander Iceland: Gísli Marteinn Baldursson Israel: Tal Barnea Italy: Nicola Caligiore

Members of the International Jury
Country	Members
Albania	Edmond Zhulali Elton Deda Klodian Qafoku Sokol Marsi Sonila Djepaxhia
Armenia	Artsvik Harutyunyan Asatur Asatryan Emma Asatryan Gohar Gasparyan
France	Dumè Enea Margaux Savarit Sebastien Barké
Germany	Mairena Torres Schuster Markus Pingel Nina Straube Roman Rätzke Stefan Spiegel
Iceland	Felix Bergsson Hulda Geirsdóttir Máni Svavarsson Margrét Blöndal
Israel	Lev Liron Litvin Eran Pinto Goel Shevach Meytal Zel Chaya
Italy	Andrea Bonetti Chiara di Gianbattista Eddy Anselmi Marta Cagnola

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (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. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 29 January 2018, 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. Switzerland was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 8 May 2018, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.[7]

Once all the competing songs for the 2018 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. Switzerland was set to perform in position 17, following the entry from Armenia and preceding the entry from Ireland.[8]

In Switzerland, three different stations broadcast the contest. Sven Epiney provided German commentary for both semi-finals airing on SRF zwei and the final airing on SRF 1. Clarissa Tami provided Italian commentary for the first semi-final airing on RSI La 2 and the final airing on RSI La 1 joined by 2014 Swiss Eurovision representative Sebalter. Jean-Marc Richard and Nicolas Taner provided French commentary for the first semi-final airing on RTS Deux and the final airing on RTS Un. The Swiss spokesperson revealing the result of the Swiss vote in the final was Letícia Carvalho.

Voting

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 were released shortly after the grand final.

Points awarded to Switzerland

Points awarded to Switzerland (Semi-final 1)[9]
Score	Televote	Jury
12 points
10 points
8 points	Austria	Belgium Israel
7 points
6 points		Czech Republic Lithuania
5 points		Croatia Spain
4 points	Finland	United Kingdom
3 points	Portugal	Armenia Azerbaijan Iceland Ireland
2 points	Croatia Estonia Iceland Ireland	Albania
1 point	Albania Israel Macedonia Spain	Austria Finland Greece

Points awarded by Switzerland

Points awarded by Switzerland (Semi-final 1)[9]
Score	Televote	Jury
12 points	Austria	Estonia
10 points	Albania	Ireland
8 points	Israel	Czech Republic
7 points	Cyprus	Lithuania
6 points	Ireland	Austria
5 points	Finland	Israel
4 points	Croatia	Cyprus
3 points	Czech Republic	Bulgaria
2 points	Greece	Finland
1 point	Estonia	Iceland

Points awarded by Switzerland (Final)[10]
Score	Televote	Jury
12 points	Serbia	Germany
10 points	Portugal	Estonia
8 points	Italy	Lithuania
7 points	Albania	Cyprus
6 points	Germany	Ireland
5 points	Israel	Sweden
4 points	Austria	Austria
3 points	Cyprus	Portugal
2 points	Denmark	Bulgaria
1 point	Spain	Israel

Detailed voting results

The following members comprised the Swiss jury:[11]

Georg Schlunegger (jury chairperson) – producer, songwriter
Alizé Oswald – singer
Michael Kinzer – boardmember of Swiss Music Export and Fondation pour la Chanson et les Musiques Actuelles
Eva Bellomo – singer
Nicola Kneringer (Nickless) – singer

Detailed voting results from Switzerland (Semi-final 1)[9]
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
Draw	Country	G. Schlunegger	A. Oswald	M. Kinzer	E. Bellomo	Nickless	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Azerbaijan	9	17	17	16	17	16		15
02	Iceland	10	9	5	5	13	10	1	16
03	Albania	8	12	12	9	16	13		2	10
04	Belgium	13	11	15	11	11	14		14
05	Czech Republic	18	3	3	1	7	3	8	8	3
06	Lithuania	5	8	1	10	3	4	7	12
07	Israel	4	1	6	12	14	6	5	3	8
08	Belarus	16	15	14	15	15	17		18
09	Estonia	1	2	9	3	2	1	12	10	1
10	Bulgaria	14	5	7	6	5	8	3	13
11	Macedonia	17	18	18	18	18	18		11
12	Croatia	11	16	13	8	8	12		7	4
13	Austria	3	4	10	2	9	5	6	1	12
14	Greece	15	14	16	14	12	15		9	2
15	Finland	7	10	4	7	10	9	2	6	5
16	Armenia	12	13	11	13	6	11		17
17	Switzerland
18	Ireland	2	6	8	4	1	2	10	5	6
19	Cyprus	6	7	2	17	4	7	4	4	7

Detailed voting results from Switzerland (Final)[10]
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
Draw	Country	G. Schlunegger	A. Oswald	M. Kinzer	E. Bellomo	Nickless	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Ukraine	25	20	24	24	26	26		25
02	Spain	15	16	14	14	13	20		10	1
03	Slovenia	22	22	11	21	4	12		26
04	Lithuania	3	7	2	4	5	3	8	20
05	Austria	5	6	9	3	14	7	4	7	4
06	Estonia	1	12	4	2	3	2	10	18
07	Norway	20	11	19	5	16	14		22
08	Portugal	9	3	8	25	9	8	3	2	10
09	United Kingdom	18	13	21	6	12	16		16
10	Serbia	23	19	26	13	25	23		1	12
11	Germany	2	1	15	1	7	1	12	5	6
12	Albania	16	18	17	15	21	21		4	7
13	France	21	8	13	11	17	17		11
14	Czech Republic	26	10	6	10	19	11		13
15	Denmark	17	26	12	26	18	22		9	2
16	Australia	8	21	25	12	22	18		17
17	Finland	10	23	5	16	20	13		21
18	Bulgaria	14	14	3	7	10	9	2	24
19	Moldova	19	25	22	22	24	25		19
20	Sweden	4	9	16	19	1	6	5	23
21	Hungary	24	24	20	23	15	24		14
22	Israel	13	2	7	17	23	10	1	6	5
23	Netherlands	11	17	23	18	11	19		15
24	Ireland	7	4	10	8	2	5	6	12
25	Cyprus	6	5	1	20	6	4	7	8	3
26	Italy	12	15	18	9	8	15		3	8

References

"Switzerland Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
Granger, Anthony (30 June 2017). "Switzerland: Eurovision 2018 Participation Confirmed". eurovoix.com. Eurovoix. Retrieved 9 January 2018.
Granger, Anthony. "Switzerland: Six Eurovision 2018 Hopefuls Revealed". Eurovoix.com. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
Ioannou, Dimitris (1 September 2017). "Song submissions open in Switzerland!". escxtra.
"Switzerland 2018". ESCKAZ.
"Which of these songs will represent Switzerland in 2018?". Eurovision.tv. 9 January 2018.
Jordan, Paul (29 January 2018). "Which countries will perform in which Semi-Final at Eurovision 2018?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 29 January 2018.
"Running order for Eurovision 2018 Semi-Finals revealed". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 3 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
"Results of the First Semi-Final of Lisbon 2018". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
"Results of the Grand Final of Lisbon 2018". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
Groot, Evert (30 April 2018). "Exclusive: They are the expert jurors for Eurovision 2018". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2018.

External links

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[1] "Switzerland Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 13 August 2014.

[confirmation-2] Granger, Anthony (30 June 2017). "Switzerland: Eurovision 2018 Participation Confirmed". eurovoix.com. Eurovoix. Retrieved 9 January 2018.

[NFhost-3] Granger, Anthony. "Switzerland: Six Eurovision 2018 Hopefuls Revealed". Eurovoix.com. Retrieved 4 January 2018.

[4] Ioannou, Dimitris (1 September 2017). "Song submissions open in Switzerland!". escxtra.

[5] "Switzerland 2018". ESCKAZ.

[6] "Which of these songs will represent Switzerland in 2018?". Eurovision.tv. 9 January 2018.

[7] Jordan, Paul (29 January 2018). "Which countries will perform in which Semi-Final at Eurovision 2018?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 29 January 2018.

[Draw-8] "Running order for Eurovision 2018 Semi-Finals revealed". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 3 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[2018detailedsemi-9] "Results of the First Semi-Final of Lisbon 2018". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.

[2018detailedfinal-10] "Results of the Grand Final of Lisbon 2018". European Broadcasting Union. Archived from the original on 10 May 2021. Retrieved 10 May 2021.

[11] Groot, Evert (30 April 2018). "Exclusive: They are the expert jurors for Eurovision 2018". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2018.