Australia originally planned to participate in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song "
Don't Break Me" written by
Jessica Cerro,
Anthony Egizii
DNA Songs is a songwriting and production company founded by Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci in Australia in 2004. They have worked with a variety of international and local artists including Ricky Martin, Geri Halliwell, The Veronicas, Guy S ...
and
David Musumeci
DNA Songs is a songwriting and production company founded by Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci in Australia in 2004. They have worked with a variety of international and local artists including Ricky Martin, Geri Halliwell, The Veronicas, Guy S ...
. The song would have been performed by
Montaigne. The Australian broadcaster
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels ( SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World ...
(SBS) organised the national final
''Eurovision – Australia Decides'' in order to select the Australian entry for the 2020 contest in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
, the Netherlands. Ten artists and songs competed in the national final and the winner was selected by a public and jury vote.
Australia debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in
2015 by invitation from the
European Broadcasting Union (EBU) as a "one-off" special guest to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Eurovision. On 17 November 2015, the EBU announced that SBS had been invited to participate in the 2016 contest and that Australia would once again take part. In 2015, Australia was guaranteed a spot in the final of the contest and was allowed to vote during both semi-finals and the final; however, from the 2016 contest and onwards, Australia would have to qualify to the final from one of two semi-finals and could only vote in the semi-final in which the nation was allocated to compete.
Australia was originally drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which would have taken place on 12 May 2020. However, the contest was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
.
Background
Special Broadcasting Service
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is an Australian hybrid-funded public service broadcaster. About 80 percent of funding for the company is derived from the Australian Government. SBS operates six TV channels ( SBS, SBS Viceland, SBS World ...
(SBS) has broadcast the Eurovision Song Contest since 1983, and the contest has gained a cult following over that time, primarily due to the country's strong political and cultural ties with Europe. Paying tribute to this, the
2014 contest semi-finals included an interval act featuring Australian singer
Jessica Mauboy
Jessica Hilda Mauboy (born 4 August 1989) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. Born and raised in Darwin, Northern Territory, she rose to fame in 2006 on the fourth season of ''Australian Idol'', where she was runner-up and subseq ...
.
Australian singers have also participated at Eurovision as representatives of other countries, including
Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was a British-Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included 15 top-ten singles, including 5 number-one singles on the ...
(
1974, ), two-time winner
Johnny Logan (
1980 and
1987
File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...
, ),
Gina G
Gina G (born Gina Mary Gardiner, 3 August 1970) is an Australian singer who represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996, with the song " Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit", which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The ...
(
1996, United Kingdom), and
Jane Comerford
Jane Comerford (born 1 January 1959 in Newcastle, Australia) is a singer, songwriter, lecturer, and vocal coach working in Germany.
Education
Jane has an extensive musical and music-related education. She studied violin and piano for 12 years, ...
as lead singer of
Texas Lightning (
2006, ).
Tying in with the goal of Eurovision—to showcase "the importance of bringing countries together to celebrate diversity, music and culture", the 2015 theme of "Building Bridges", and arguing that they could not hold "the world's biggest party" to celebrate the 60th edition of Eurovision without inviting Australia, the EBU announced on 10 February 2015 that the country would compete at that year's edition as a special guest participant.
Along with the "
Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), and the host country of Austria, Australia was given automatic entry into the final to "not reduce the chances" of the semi-final participants.
On 17 November 2015, the EBU announced that SBS had been invited to participate in the 2016 contest and that Australia would once again take part, however they would have to qualify for the final from one of two semi-finals and could only vote in the semi-final in which the nation was competing. On 29 May 2019, SBS confirmed Australia's participation in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest after securing an invitation for the sixth year in a row. In 2019,
Australia was represented by
Kate Miller-Heidke
Kate Melina Miller-Heidke (; born 16 November 1981) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Although classically trained, she has generally followed a career in alternative pop music. She signed to Sony Australia, Epic in the US and RCA in th ...
and the song "
Zero Gravity
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. It is also termed zero gravity, zero G-force, or zero-G.
Weight is a measurement of the force on an object at rest in a relatively strong gravitational f ...
". The country ended in ninth place in the grand final with 284 points. On 29 August 2019, SBS announced that they would once hold a national final to select the Australian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020.
Before Eurovision
''Eurovision – Australia Decides''
''
Eurovision – Australia Decides
''Eurovision – Australia Decides'' was an annual song competition organised by Australian public broadcaster Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) and production partner Blink TV. It determined for the Eurovision Song Contest between 2019 and ...
'' was the national final in order to select the Australian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020. The competition took place at the
Convention and Exhibition Centre in
Gold Coast
Gold Coast may refer to:
Places Africa
* Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana:
** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642)
** Dutch G ...
on 8 February 2020, hosted by
Myf Warhurst
Myfanwy Warhurst (, born May 29, 1973) is an Australian radio announcer and television personality, best known for her work at Triple J radio station and on ABC Television's long-running music-themed quiz show '' Spicks and Specks''. she has an ...
and
Joel Creasey
Joel Creasey (born 11 August 1990) is an Australian stand-up comedian, actor, television and radio presenter. Creasey has performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as performing at the New York International Fringe Festiv ...
. Ten artists and songs competed with the winner being determined by a combination of public and jury voting. The show was broadcast on SBS as well as streamed online at SBS On Demand. The national final was watched by 334,000 viewers in Australia.
Competing entries
On 29 August 2019, SBS announced an open submission for interested songwriters to submit their songs online until 30 September 2019. Songwriters were required to be citizens or permanent residents of Australia and songs were required to be in English or an
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
language. Minor collaborations with foreign songwriters were permitted as long as the majority of the composers/songwriters were Australian citizens or permanent residents. Ten songs were selected for the competition from the received submissions and performers of the selected songs were determined by SBS in consultation with the songwriters. The ten competing acts were announced in three sets between 8 November and 16 December 2019.
Final
The final took place on 8 February 2020. The combination of public votes (50%) and a five-member jury (50%) selected "
Don't Break Me" performed by
Montaigne as the winner. The jury consisted of Josh Martin (Head of the Australian Eurovision Delegation),
Kate Miller-Heidke
Kate Melina Miller-Heidke (; born 16 November 1981) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Although classically trained, she has generally followed a career in alternative pop music. She signed to Sony Australia, Epic in the US and RCA in th ...
(
2019 Australian Eurovision entrant),
Måns Zelmerlöw
Måns Petter Albert Sahlén Zelmerlöw (; born 13 June 1986) is a Swedish pop singer, songwriter and television presenter. He took part in ''Idol 2005'', eventually finishing fifth, won the first season of '' Let's Dance,'' and scored a hit wit ...
(winner of the
Eurovision Song Contest 2015
The Eurovision Song Contest 2015 was the 60th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Vienna, Austria, following the country's victory at the with the song "Rise Like a Phoenix" by Conchita Wurst. Organised by the European Broa ...
for
Sweden), Milly Petriella (Director of Member Relations of
APRA) and Paul Clarke (Director of Blink TV and Creative Director of ''Eurovision – Australia Decides'') who each distributed points from 1–8, 10 and 12 during the preview show on 7 February 2020 and had a total of 290 points to award. Viewers were able to vote via SMS and the total votes were divided by 290 to determine the quota that would equal to a single point. The number of votes each song gained was then divided by the quota and rounded up to the nearest integer to determine the points an entry would be awarded. In addition to the performances of the ten competing entries,
2016 Australian Eurovision entrant Dami Im
Dami Im ( , , ; born October 17, 1988) is a South Korean-born Australian singer and songwriter. She represented Australia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 held in Stockholm, Sweden with the song " Sound of Silence", placing second and ach ...
, Kate Miller-Heidke and Måns Zelmerlöw performed as the interval acts.
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 28 January 2020, 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. Australia was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 12 May 2020, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the contest was cancelled.
References
External links
*
*
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2020
2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020
Eurovision
Eurovision