Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012

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Eurovision Song Contest 2012
Country Greece
National selection
Selection processEllinikós Telikós 2012
Selection date(s)12 March 2012
Selected entrantEleftheria Eleftheriou
Selected song"Aphrodisiac"
Selected songwriter(s)
Finals performance
Semi-final resultQualified (4th, 116 points)
Final result17th, 64 points
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2011 2012 2013►

Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Their selected song "Aphrodisiac" was written by Dimitri Stassos, Mikaela Stenström and Dajana Lööf, and was performed by Eleftheria Eleftheriou, who had previously attempted to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. The entry was selected through the televised national final Ellinikós Telikós, organised by the country's public broadcasting service Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and held on 12 March 2012 at the River West shopping mall in Athens. Due to the debt crisis facing Greece at the time, the record label of the entry was expected to take on the costs of recording and producing the candidate songs. Universal Music Greece was the only label to accept these terms and put forth four competing acts for consideration. The winning act was selected using a combination of jury and televoting. Following the national final, Eleftheriou embarked on a promotional campaign visiting Turkey and the Netherlands.

Greece was drawn to appear third in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, which was held on 22 May. There, the nation placed fourth with 116 points and qualified for the grand final, held four days later. Greece was randomly selected the 16th position at the grand final allocation draw, performing after Denmark and before Sweden. The entry received 64 points at the grand final from a combined jury and televote, finishing in 17th place.

Background

Prior to the 2012 contest, Greece had participated in the

Thalassa, receiving only 12 points in total, all from Cyprus.[1]

Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry.[3][4] In late November 2011, ERT's deputy public relations spokesperson Areti Kalesaki confirmed the country's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 citing the contest's popularity.[5] She also stated that their budget for the event would be lowered significantly compared to previous years.[5][6]

Before Eurovision

Ellinikós Telikós 2012

On 30 January 2012, the Greek national broadcaster ERT revealed that the national final

Universal Music Greece, leading to an agreement between the broadcaster and the label to organize the selection process.[9][5] The four competed songs competed in playback, with the winner decided by a 50/50 combination of public and jury voting.[10] The jury consisted of Marina Lahana (radio producer and Head of ERA2), Andreas Pilarinos (conductor), Foteini Giannolatou (Head of Public Relations for ERT), Mihalis Tsaousopoulos (radio producer) and Tasos Trifonos (radio producer).[11] Public voting was conducted through telephone or SMS, with 10,385 telephone votes and 14,172 SMS votes being cast during the show. All proceeds from the voting went to the charity organisations Kivotos Tou Kosmou (Arc of the world), Paidika Horia SOS (Children's villages SOS) and To Hamogelo Tou Paidiou (The smile of a child).[12]

Competing entries

On 23 February 2012, ERT announced that four candidate entries would compete in Ellinikós Telikós 2012.[13] Five days later, the competing songs, without revealing their performers and songwriters, were released through the ERT website and official Facebook and Twitter pages; the songs then began playing on Hellenic Radio stations on 1 March 2012.[14] The running order draw for the competing entries took place on 4 March during a media event hosted by ERT and Universal Music Greece.[15] The next day, preview videos of each song revealing their performers aired on ERT.[16] The names of the four acts, all signed to Universal, were released on 5 March; they included Cassiopeia, Dora, Eleftheria Eleftheriou and Velvet Fire.[17]

Dora's "Baby I'm Yours" was written by the duo Hush Hush, which consisted of Franc, and Ilias Pantazopoulos, with lyrics by Nektarios Tyrakis.

The X Factor.[20] She had also tried to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, but a week before song presentations her song was leaked, thus disqualifying her from the national final.[21]

Final

Eleftheria Eleftheriou won Ellinikós Telikós 2012 with the song "Aphrodisiac".

Ellinikós Telikós 2012 took place on 12 March at the River West shopping mall in Athens, hosted by Maria Kozakou and Giorgos Frantzeskakis.[10] The show was televised on both ET1 and ERT World as well as online on both the ERT and official Eurovision Song Contest websites.[22] At the end of voting, Eleftheriou with "Aphrodisiac" was selected as the Greek entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, having won both the public and jury vote.[23][24] The show received a market share of 10.8% according to ABG Nielsen Hellas,[25][26] and #EurovisionGR was a worldwide trending topic on Twitter during its airing.[27] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the interval acts featured guest performances by Eurovision Song Contest 2012 entrants Sofi Marinova of Bulgaria, Ivi Adamou of Cyprus and Anggun of France. Singers Giorgos Sabanis, Christos P. and Greece's 2011 participant Loukas Yorkas were also present at the show.[24]

Final – 12 March 2012[10]
Draw Artist Song Songwriter(s)
1 Dora "Baby I'm Yours" Franc, Ilias Pantazopoulos, Nektarios Tyrakis
2 Cassiopeia "Killer Bee" Christos Dantis, Leonidas Chantzaras
3 Velvet Fire "No Parking" George Samuelson, Leonidas Chantzaras
4 Eleftheria Eleftheriou "Aphrodisiac" Dimitri Stassos, Mikaela Stenström, Dajana Lööf

Reception

Reactions to the national final were mostly negative, with many media personalities and viewers criticizing the choice of venue, poor production, lack of vision, poor hosts and use of playback vocals instead of live vocals.[28][29][30] Many also complained that Eleftheriou's song and performance were reminiscent of past entrants Paparizou and Kalomoira.[31] Despite the many complaints, others applauded the broadcaster's efforts to take part in the contest with a limited budget and its clever choice of using a shopping mall's natural setting as a backdrop as opposed to a dark studio as was the case the previous year for Ellinikós Telikós 2011.[32] Former entrant Sakis Rouvas also commended the broadcaster for continuing on a tight budget and commented that the result of production should have been expected as it was "a sign of the times", referring to the Greek government-debt crisis.[33]

Promotion

To promote the entry, Eleftheriou made several appearances across Europe, including a stop in Turkey,[34] as well as in the Netherlands, where she participated in Eurovision in Concert at club Melkweg in Amsterdam on 21 April 2012.[35]

At Eurovision

The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 took place at the Baku Crystal Hall in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 took place at the

Big Five", consisting of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, were required to qualify from one of the two semi-finals to compete for the grand final; the top 10 countries from the respective semi-finals would proceed to the final.[37]

On 25 January 2012, an allocation draw was held at the Buta Palace in Baku that placed each country into one of the two semi-finals; Greece was placed into the first half of the first semi-final, to be held on 22 May.[38] Once all the competing songs for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by another draw, which was held on 20 March.[39] The nation was assigned to perform at position three, following Iceland and preceding Latvia.[39]

Performances

Eleftheriou performed "Aphrodisiac" in the first semi-final on 22 May 2012, appearing third out of the 18 countries.[37] The choreography used during the performance was different from the entry's initial performance at Ellinikós Telikós 2012.[31] The two male back-up dancers were replaced by two women and more emphasis was placed on her movements when she sung the lyric "maniac".[40] The performance saw Eleftheriou, her backing vocalists and dancers dressed casually, with the stage's LED screens set to light and dark blue tones with golden structures, including a large golden shell.[41] The choreography for the performance was organized by Konstantinos Rigos, who also served in that role for Greece the previous year.[42][43] At the end of voting, Greece placed fourth with 116 points, thus qualifying for the grand final.[44] The public awarded Greece fifth place with 110 points and the jury awarded the nation third place with 103 points.[45]

During the winners press conference for the first semi-final qualifiers, Greece was drawn to compete 16th in the grand final.[46] This placed the nation after the performance of Denmark and before that of Sweden. In the final, held on 26 May 2012, Greece placed 17th out of the 26 participants, scoring 64 points.[47] The public awarded Greece ninth place with 89 points and the jury awarded the nation 18th place with 60 points.[45]

Voting

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Greece in the first semi-final and final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, as well as by the country in the semi-final and final, respectively.

Points awarded to Greece

Points awarded by Greece

References

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