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Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018

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Eurovision Song Contest 2018
Country Finland
National selection
Selection processArtist: Internal Selection
Song: Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018
Selection date(s)3 March 2018
Selected artist(s)Saara Aalto
Selected song"Monsters"
Selected songwriter(s)Saara Aalto
Joy Deb
Linnea Deb
Ki Fitzgerald
Finals performance
Semi-final resultQualified (10th, 108 points)
Final result25th, 46 points
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2017 • 2018 • 2019►

Finland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The entry was selected in the national final Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018 on 3 March 2018, where all three entries were performed by the singer Saara Aalto who was internally selected by the Finnish broadcaster Yle on 7 November 2017 to perform the nation's entry at the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal.

Background

Main article: Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2018 Contest, Finland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-one times since their first entry in 1961.[1] Finland has won the contest once in 2006 with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" performed by Lordi. In the 2017 contest, "Blackbird" performed by Norma John failed to qualify Finland to the final, making it the third consecutive year that Finland missed out on qualification.

The Finnish national broadcaster, Yleisradio (Yle), broadcasts the event within Finland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. Yle confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest on 28 January 2017.[2] Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest have been selected through national final competitions that have varied in format over the years. Between 1961 and 2011, a selection show that was often titled Euroviisukarsinta highlighted that the purpose of the program was to select a song for Eurovision. However, since 2012, the broadcaster has organised the selection show Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), which focuses on showcasing new music with the winning song being selected as the Finnish contest entry for that year. Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster also announced that the Finnish entry for the 2018 contest would be selected through Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018.[2]

Before Eurovision

Artist selection

Yle announced that they had internally selected Saara Aalto to represent Finland in Lisbon during a live streamed press conference on 7 November 2017, hosted by 2013 Finnish Eurovision entrant Krista Siegfrids and Mikko Silvennoinen.[3] In the press conference, the broadcaster also announced that her contest entry would be selected through Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018 with three songs competing.[4] The competing songs along with their promotional music videos were presented on 9, 16 and 23 February 2018, respectively.[4]

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2018 was the seventh edition of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the music competition that selects Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition consisted of one final on 3 March 2018, held at the Espoo Metro Areena in Espoo and hosted by Krista Siegfrids and Mikko Silvennoinen.[5] The show was broadcast on Yle TV1 and online at yle.fi/umk as well as via radio with commentary in Swedish by Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos on Yle X3M.[6] Three songs, all performed by Saara Aalto, competed and "Monsters" was selected as the winning song by a 50/50 combination of public votes and eight international jury groups from the United Kingdom, Iceland, France, Estonia, Italy, Switzerland, Norway and Portugal.[7] The viewers and the juries each had a total of 240 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through the following voting methods: telephone, SMS and online voting. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 240 points rounded to the nearest integer: 24 points.

Final – 3 March 2018
Draw Song Songwriter(s) Jury Televote Total Place
1 "Monsters" Saara Aalto, Joy Deb, Linnea Deb, Ki Fitzgerald 88 95 183 1
2 "Domino" Thomas G:son, Bobby Ljunggren, Johnny Sanchez, Will Taylor, Saara Aalto 84 75 159 2
3 "Queens" Farley Arvidsson, Charlie Walshe, Tom Aspaul, Saara Aalto 68 70 138 3
Detailed International Jury Votes
Draw Song United Kingdom Iceland France Estonia Italy Switzerland Norway Portugal Total
1 "Monsters" 12 10 12 10 12 10 12 10 88
2 "Domino" 10 12 10 12 8 12 8 12 84
3 "Queens" 8 8 8 8 10 8 10 8 68
International Jury Spokespersons

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (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. Finland 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.[8]

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. Finland was set to perform in position 15, following the entry from Greece and preceding the entry from Armenia.[9]

Semi-final

Finland performed fifteenth in the first semi-final, following the entry from Greece and preceding the entry from Armenia. At the end of the night, Finland were one of the ten countries announced as having qualified for the grand final, their first qualification since 2014. Following the semi-final, Saara Aalto joined the other qualifiers in a press conference in which they drew to see which half of the final they would compete in. Finland was drawn to perform in the second half of the grand final (Aalto joked that it continued her "curse of twos" - she finished second in The X Factor UK and in two Eurovision pre-selections, competed in the second half of the first semi-final, and were the second-to-last country announced as qualifying).It was later revealed that Finland placed tenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 108 points: 73 points from the televoting and 35 points from the juries.

Final

Finland performed 17th in the grand final, following Australia and preceding Bulgaria. At the end of the night, they received 46 points, finishing in twenty-fifth place. So, as it happened, the "curse of twos" continued - the song finished second-to-last.

Voting

Voting during the three shows involves 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 will consist of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. The jury judges 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 will be released shortly after the grand final.

Points awarded to Finland

Points awarded to Finland (Semi-final 1)
Televote
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
Jury
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
Points awarded to Finland (final)
Televote
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point
Jury
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

Points awarded by Finland

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Finnish jury:[10]

  • Petri Kari Olavi Laaksonen (Petri Laaksonen) – Chairperson – singer-songwriter, composer of the Finnish entries in the 1985 and 1987 Contests
  • Laura Marketta Vähähyyppä – radio DJ, journalist
  • Aija Puurtinen – Doctor of Music, singer, musician
  • Matias Veikko Olavi Keskiruokanen – producer, composer
  • Vilma Alina Lähteenmäki (Vilma Alina) – singer-songwriter
Split voting results from Finland (Semi-final 1)
Draw Country Jury Televote
L. Marketta A. Puurtinen P. Laaksonen M. Keskiruokanen V. Alina Average Rank Points Rank Points
01  Azerbaijan 10 15 10 13 16 14 16
02  Iceland 13 12 6 12 9 13 13
03  Albania 4 7 4 16 6 5 6 10 1
04  Belgium 6 3 8 7 12 6 5 14
05  Czech Republic 9 14 13 8 7 12 4 7
06  Lithuania 14 6 9 6 11 9 2 9 2
07  Israel 1 1 3 1 1 1 12 2 10
08  Belarus 17 17 12 18 18 17 8 3
09  Estonia 18 13 18 10 13 16 1 12
10  Bulgaria 2 2 2 2 5 2 10 12
11  Macedonia 16 18 17 17 17 18 18
12  Croatia 12 16 16 14 10 15 17
13  Austria 3 4 1 3 4 3 8 3 8
14  Greece 11 10 5 11 15 11 11
15  Finland
16  Armenia 7 11 7 5 14 8 3 15
17   Switzerland 8 9 11 9 8 10 1 7 4
18  Ireland 5 8 15 15 3 7 4 5 6
19  Cyprus 15 5 14 4 2 4 7 6 5
Split voting results from Finland (final)
Draw Country Jury Televote
L. Marketta A. Puurtinen P. Laaksonen M. Keskiruokanen V. Alina Average Rank Points Rank Points
01  Ukraine 21 21 21 20 19 23 19
02  Spain 22 14 18 7 16 15 24
03  Slovenia 23 24 25 24 25 25 22
04  Lithuania 13 13 19 8 15 14 14
05  Austria 5 2 2 6 7 4 7 8 3
06  Estonia 20 12 17 21 22 18 1 12
07  Norway 10 16 7 16 23 13 11
08  Portugal 24 15 24 22 14 20 23
09  United Kingdom 11 17 13 18 18 16 21
10  Serbia 19 19 22 23 20 24 25
11  Germany 9 8 8 11 11 10 1 16
12  Albania 14 11 11 13 10 12 17
13  France 16 6 4 5 1 6 5 7 4
14  Czech Republic 15 7 12 12 13 11 6 5
15  Denmark 4 20 3 15 9 8 3 2 10
16  Australia 25 22 16 14 21 21 18
17  Finland
18  Bulgaria 2 5 1 4 6 2 10 20
19  Moldova 18 25 14 19 24 22 13
20  Sweden 3 4 6 3 3 3 8 12
21  Hungary 12 23 23 25 12 17 3 8
22  Israel 1 1 10 1 2 1 12 4 7
23  Netherlands 17 18 20 17 17 19 9 2
24  Ireland 7 10 15 9 8 9 2 15
25  Cyprus 6 3 9 2 5 5 6 10 1
26  Italy 8 9 5 10 4 7 4 5 6

References

  1. ^ "Finland Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  2. ^ a b "Osallistu Uuden Musiikin Kilpailun 2018 artistihakuun - haku on päättynyt". yle.fi (in Finnish). Yle. 28 January 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. ^ "Saara Aalto to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest!". eurovision.tv. 7 November 2017. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  4. ^ a b Weaver, Jessica (10 January 2018). "Finland: UMK18 songs to be released next month; first song on 9 February". ESCtoday.com. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
  5. ^ Weaver, Jessica (15 January 2018). "Watch now: UMK 2018 press conference in Finland". ESCtoday.com. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  6. ^ Weaver, Jessica (3 March 2018). "Watch now: Saara Aalto's Eurovision 2018 entry to be decided". Esctoday. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  7. ^ Tonks, Andrea (20 March 2018). "Eurovision 2018: Meet all of the contestants in the Eurovision Song Contest". Express. Retrieved 18 April 2018.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ "Running order for Eurovision 2018 Semi-Finals revealed". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 3 April 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ^ Groot, Evert (30 April 2018). "Exclusive: They are the expert jurors for Eurovision 2018". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
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