Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
participated in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2012
The Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was the 57th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, following the country's victory at the with the song " Running Scared" by the duo Ell & Nikki. It was the first time Azerb ...
with the song "Vida minha" written by
Andrej Babić
Andrej Babić is a Croatian songwriter who has written many Eurovision songs since 2003. He has written songs for four countries: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Portugal.
Eurovision Song Contest entries
* Lyrics by Carlos Coel ...
and Carlos Coelho. The song was performed by
Filipa Sousa
Filipa Sousa (born 2 March 1985) is a Portuguese singer. She represented Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan with the song " Vida minha".
Sousa debuted in 2003, as a member of the Portuguese group, Al-Mouraria. In th ...
. The Portuguese broadcaster
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) is the public service broadcasting organisation of Portugal. It operates four national television channels and three national radio stations, as well as several satellite and cable offerings.
The current co ...
(RTP) organised the national final ''
Festival da Canção
Festival da Canção (; "Song Festival") or Festival RTP da Canção is the name given to the national festival, produced and broadcast by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) to choose the for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first held in ...
2012'' in order to select the Portuguese entry for the 2012 contest in
Baku, Azerbaijan. The competition took place on 10 March 2012 where "Vida minha" performed by Filipa Sousa emerged as the winner after achieving the highest score following the combination of votes from twenty regional juries and a public televote.
Portugal was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 24 May 2012. Performing during the show in position 6, "Vida minha" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Portugal placed thirteenth out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 39 points.
Background
Prior to the 2012 contest, Portugal had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest forty-five times since its first entry in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...
. The nation's highest placing in the contest was sixth, which they achieved in
1996 with the song "O meu coração não tem cor" performed by
Lúcia Moniz
Ana Lúcia Pereira Moniz (born 9 September 1976) is a Portuguese singer and actress. Moniz represented her country in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996 and has released five music albums She has also acted in several television shows, in theat ...
. Following the
introduction of semi-finals for the
2004, Portugal had featured in only three finals. Portugal's least successful result has been last place, which they have achieved on three occasions, most recently in
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
with the song "Antes do adeus" performed by Célia Lawson. Portugal has also received ''
nul points
The winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by a positional voting system. The most recent system was implemented in the , and sees each participating country award two sets of 12, 10, 8–1 points to their ten favourite songs: one set f ...
'' on two occasions; in 1964 and 1997. The nation failed to qualify to the final in
2011 with the song "A luta é alegria" performed by
Homens da Luta.
The Portuguese national broadcaster,
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal
Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) is the public service broadcasting organisation of Portugal. It operates four national television channels and three national radio stations, as well as several satellite and cable offerings.
The current co ...
(RTP), broadcasts the event within Portugal and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Despite consideration to withdraw due to the economic crisis in the country, RTP confirmed Portugal's participation in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest on 25 November 2011.
The broadcaster has traditionally selected the Portuguese entry for the Eurovision Song Contest via the music competition ''
Festival da Canção
Festival da Canção (; "Song Festival") or Festival RTP da Canção is the name given to the national festival, produced and broadcast by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) to choose the for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first held in ...
'', with exceptions in
1988
File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...
and
2005 when the Portuguese entries were internally selected. Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster revealed details regarding their selection procedure and announced the organization of ''Festival da Canção 2012'' in order to select the 2012 Portuguese entry.
Before Eurovision
Festival da Canção 2012
''Festival da Canção 2012'' was the 48th edition of ''
Festival da Canção
Festival da Canção (; "Song Festival") or Festival RTP da Canção is the name given to the national festival, produced and broadcast by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) to choose the for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first held in ...
'' that selected Portugal's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. Twelve entries competed in the competition which took place on 10 March 2012 at RTP's Studio 1 in
Lisbon. The show was hosted by
Sílvia Alberto
Sílvia Alberto (born 18 May 1981) is a Portuguese television presenter and actress, currently employed by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. She began her career in 2000, presenting ''Clube Disney'' on RTP1.
She was one of the hosts of the 2018 ...
and Pedro Granger and broadcast on
RTP1
RTP1 (''RTP um'') is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainst ...
,
RTP1 HD
RTP1 HD was RTP's HDTV channel. In 2008 it broadcast the 2008 Summer Olympics in HD on ZON's cable and satellite platforms. It is also marketed as RTP1 HD, when broadcasting RTP1 programming.
The channel closed on November 28, 2017, after the ...
,
RTP África
RTP África is a Portuguese television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is available in the Portuguese-speaking African countries, where it is available as a basic cable and s ...
and
RTP Internacional
RTP Internacional (RTPi) is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's international television service, and is known for broadcast ...
as well as online via the broadcaster's official website ''rtp.pt''.
Competing entries
Artists that possessed Portuguese citizenship were able to submit their applications for the competition online between 9 December 2011 and 31 December 2011.
Auditions were held at the RTP Headquarters in
Lisbon on 5 and 6 January 2012 and in
Porto
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
on 10 and 11 January 2012 where over 400 applicants performed in front of a jury panel consisting of Portuguese Head of Delegation for the Eurovision Song Contest José Poiares and music producers Fernando Martins and Ramón Galarza.
Nine artists without any previous music career were selected following the auditions and an additional three were selected out of the auditions as established artists with previously released work: Carlos Costa, Ricardo Soler and Rui Andrade. Twelve composers were then invited by RTP to create songs in
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and the
fado
Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre that can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado was ...
genre for the performers, with Martins and Galarza working in coordination with the composers on the production of the songs. The competing artists were revealed on 13 January 2012, while the selected composers were revealed on 28 January 2012.
The composers were:
*
Andrej Babić
Andrej Babić is a Croatian songwriter who has written many Eurovision songs since 2003. He has written songs for four countries: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Portugal.
Eurovision Song Contest entries
* Lyrics by Carlos Coel ...
*
Armando Teixeira
* João Só
* Johnny Galvão
* Menito Ramos
*
Miguel Gameiro
-->
Miguel is a given name and surname, the Portuguese and Spanish form of the Hebrew name Michael. It may refer to:
Places
* Pedro Miguel, a parish in the municipality of Horta and the island of Faial in the Azores Islands
* São Miguel (disa ...
* Nuno Feist
* Tiago Dias
* Tozé Brito
* Tozé Santos (Tó Zé)
* Miguel Majer
* Jorge Fernando
Final
The final took place on 10 March 2012. Twelve entries competed the winner, "Vida minha" performed by
Filipa Sousa
Filipa Sousa (born 2 March 1985) is a Portuguese singer. She represented Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan with the song " Vida minha".
Sousa debuted in 2003, as a member of the Portuguese group, Al-Mouraria. In th ...
, was selected based on the 50/50 combination of votes of twenty regional juries and a public televote.
In addition to the performances of the competing entries,
Ana Laíns, Bruno Correia and
Yolanda Soares performed as the interval acts.
Promotion
Filipa Sousa made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "Vida minha" as the Portuguese Eurovision entry. On 21 April, Filipa Sousa performed during the ''Eurovision in Concert'' event which was held at the
Melkweg
Melkweg (Dutch for "Milky Way") is a popular music venue and cultural centre in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is located on Lijnbaansgracht, near Leidseplein, a prime nightlife square of Amsterdam. It is housed in a former dairy and is divided int ...
venue in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
,
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and hosted by
Cornald Maas
Cornald Maas is a Dutch television presenter who has been known for presenting talk shows in the Netherlands. He is the brother of Frans Maas.
Early career
He was an editor involved in ''The Scream of the Lion'' (VARA) with Paul de Leeuw, ''Son ...
and
Ruth Jacott
Ruth Jacott (born 2 September 1960) is a Surinamese-Dutch singer.
Jacott transitioned from musical theatre to popular music in 1993, when she represented the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest 1993. Her song, "Vrede" (Peace), was one o ...
. She also performed during the ''London Eurovision Party'' on 29 April, which was held at the Shadow Lounge venue in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and hosted by
Nicki French Nicki is a given name, and may refer to:
Film and television
* Nicki Aycox (1975-2022), American actress best known for her roles as Syl on the series ''Dark Angel'' and Stella Vessey on the dramedy ''Ed''
* Nicki Chapman (born 1967), English tel ...
and
Paddy O'Connell
Guy Patrick O'Connell (born 11 March 1966 in Guildford, Surrey) is an English television and radio presenter, working mainly for the BBC. He presents BBC Radio 4's '' Broadcasting House'' programme each Sunday morning. He is also an occasiona ...
.
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 20 January 2014, 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. Portugal was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 24 May 2012, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show. The running order for the semi-finals was decided through another draw on 20 March 2012 and Portugal was set to perform in position 6, following the entry from
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
and before the entry from
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
.
In Portugal, the three shows were broadcast on
RTP1
RTP1 (''RTP um'') is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainst ...
,
RTP1 HD
RTP1 HD was RTP's HDTV channel. In 2008 it broadcast the 2008 Summer Olympics in HD on ZON's cable and satellite platforms. It is also marketed as RTP1 HD, when broadcasting RTP1 programming.
The channel closed on November 28, 2017, after the ...
and
RTP Internacional
RTP Internacional (RTPi) is a Portuguese free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP). It is the company's international television service, and is known for broadcast ...
with commentary by Pedro Granger. The second semi-final and the final were broadcast live, while the first semi-final was broadcast on delay. The Portuguese spokesperson, who announced the Portuguese votes during the final, was Joana Teles.
Semi-final
Filipa Sousa took part in technical rehearsals on 15 and 18 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 23 and 24 May. This included the jury final where professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries. The Portuguese performance featured Filipa Sousa wearing a golden dress performing a routine choreographed by Marco de Camillis, with five backing vocalists lined up behind the singer: Carla Ribero, Eduardo Marques, Filipe Fontenele, Joana Inacio and Pedro Coelho. The LED screens displayed images of old
Lisbon.
At the end of the show, Portugal was not announced among the top 10 entries in the second semi-final and therefore failed to qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Portugal placed thirteenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 39 points.
Voting
Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding points from 1-8, 10 and 12 as determined by a combination of 50% national
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England du ...
and 50%
televoting
Televoting, telephone voting or phone voting is a method of decision making and opinion polling conducted by telephone. Televoting can also extend to voting by SMS text message via a mobile cell phone.
Broadcast contest televoting
Televoting ...
. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent. 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.
Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that Portugal had placed thirteenth with the public televote and twelfth with the jury vote in the first semi-final. In the public vote, Portugal scored 37 points, while with the jury vote, Portugal scored 49 points.
Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Portugal and awarded by Portugal in the second semi-final and grand final of the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Estonia in the semi-final and to Spain in the final of the contest.
Points awarded to Portugal
Points awarded by Portugal
References
External links
Competition rules''
RTP''
{{Eurovision Song Contest 2012
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012
Eurovision