Andorra has participated in the
Eurovision Song Contest six times, debuting in the
2004 contest and participating every year thereafter until the
2009 contest. To date, Andorra remains the only nation to have never competed in a final, with its best result being a 12th-place finish in the
2007 contest's semi-final. Andorra withdrew from the contest following its 2009 appearance, with the national broadcaster Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra (RTVA) citing financial difficulties as the reason for its withdrawal. The country has not entered the contest again since. Interest in the contest has, however, remained high in the country, while statements from the Andorran government and broadcaster indicated that a future return was possible, depending on financial backing.
RTVA used a mixture of methods to select its entrants in the years it competed, employing a national final for
2004,
2005 and
2009 and selecting internally between
2006 and
2008. A
televote was principally used to determine the nation's points, however, due to the country's small population, on occasion a jury was required as the number of votes received from the Andorran public was deemed too low to be considered valid.
For its first Eurovision appearance, an agreement was announced between RTVA and Televisió de Catalunya (TVC) to jointly organise Andorra's first national final, with viewers in
Catalonia being given a say in who should represent the country in the
2004 contest.[10][11] Viewers and an assembled jury subsequently chose
Marta Roure with "
Jugarem a estimar-nos" as Andorra's first entry;[12][13] ultimately the nation did not fare well, placing 18th of the 22 participating countries in the
semi-final, receiving 12 points in total, all from
Spain, and failing to qualify for the
grand final.[14] After debating employing an internal selection to determine Andorra's second entry, a second national final was organised ahead of the
2005 contest.[15]Marian van de Wal was chosen to perform "
La mirada interior" at the contest, however Andorra once again failed to qualify for the
final, placing 23rd of 25 countries in the
2005 semi-final with 27 points.[16][17]
RTVA initiated an internal selection to determine its entry for the
2006 contest, selecting "
Sense tu" performed by
Jenny;[18] the nation's third appearance would bring its worst result to date, placing last in the
semi-final and receiving just eight points.[19] Further internal selections followed in
2007 and
2008, however neither
Anonymous nor
Gisela could bring Andorra to the final in either of the contests.[20][21][22] RTVA reverted to a national final for the
2009 contest, with
Susanne Georgi selected by the Andorran public and jury to represent the country with "
La teva decisió (Get a Life)";[23][24] on its sixth appearance, Andorra continued to fail to pass through the semi-final, placing 15th in the
first semi-final with eight points and failing to qualify for the final.[25] After initially applying to take part in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2010 in
Oslo, Norway, RTVA subsequently announced its withdrawal from the contest, citing financial difficulties.[26]
Budget restrictions have continued to prevent Andorra from returning to the contest, with RTVA having previously considered leaving the EBU in order to recoup costs, which would have prevented any further Andorran participation in the event.[27][28][29] In recent years, renewed interest in the contest has been reported among some members of the Andorran government, with past Andorran Eurovision artists having also been vocal in their support for a return of the nation to the contest.[30][31] Georgi, Andorra's last participant, also started a campaign to secure a potential sponsorship which would enable Andorra to return to the contest and lobbied with Andorran politicians on this idea.[32][33] Andorra is the only country to have never participated in a final to date; 2007 remains the country's best result to date, when Anonymous placed 12th in
that year's semi-final with 80 points, 11 points away from qualifying.[20][34]
Selection process
Andorra has used a mix of methods to select its entries for the contest, having employed both national finals and internal selections. For its debut entry, RTVA launched a
casting show, Eurocàsting, to determine two acts to take part in the national final.[35][36] The selected acts performed 12 potential Eurovision songs over nine weeks on 12 punts, with songs being eliminated weekly until the winning song and artist was determined in the final show.[11][37]Eurocàsting returned in 2005, but with one winning artist selected to perform three songs in the single final show Desitja'm sort.[38][39] Following internal selections between 2006 and 2008, RTVA employed a televised competition again in 2009, with three acts competing in Passaport a Moscou.[18][21][22][40]
In the years where Andorra participated, voting at the Eurovision Song Contest typically consisted of 100 percent public
televoting, with countries obligated to use televoting as the method for determining their points from the 2004 contest.[41] However, each country was obligated to assemble a back-up jury, whose votes would be used instead of the televote in cases of technical failure, or from 2005 when the number of televotes registered failed to pass a certain threshold.[41][42] RTVA utilised
SMS voting to determine the country's points during the shows in which Andorra participated, however on occasion the back-up jury results were required to be implemented as the number of votes received was considered too low to provide a valid result.[42][43] This occurred in
2005 and
2007, when the votes of Andorra's back-up jury were used instead to provide the Andorran votes in both the semi-final and final.[42][44]
The public broadcaster of each participating country in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers and backing vocalists, among others.[52]
For the show's broadcast on Andorra Televisió (ATV), various commentators have provided commentary for the contest in the local language. At the Eurovision Song Contest after all points are calculated, the presenters of the show call upon each voting country to invite each respective spokesperson to announce the results of their vote on-screen.[54]
^
ab"Informació del programa–12 punts" (in Catalan). Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA).
Archived from the original on 10 December 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2021.