In August 2008 Estonian Minister of Culture Laine Jänes announced a possible boycott could be held between the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia later rebuked the boycott and announced that they would be present at the 2009 contest.[3]
In September 2008 a public poll was held on whether Estonia should participate at the contest. 66% of the poll takers wished to see Estonia at the contest. ERR later submitted to public demand and announced that they would participate at the contest in May.[2] The winner of the newly formed contest Eesti Laul, replacing the former Eurolaul, was Urban Symphony with the song "Rändajad" (Nomads or Travellers), written by Sven Lõhmus, which received 82% of the final vote.[4][5][6]
Before Eurovision
Eesti Laul 2009
Eesti Laul 2009 was the first edition of the Estonian national selection Eesti Laul, which selected Estonia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The competition took place on 7 March 2009, broadcast on Eesti Televisioon (ETV) as well as streamed online at the broadcaster's official website err.ee and the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv.
Competing entries
On 14 October 2008, ERR opened the submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries up until 8 December 2008. All artists and composers were required to have Estonian citizenship or be a permanent resident of Estonia.[7] 110 submissions were received by the deadline. An 11-member jury panel selected 10 finalists from the submissions and the selected songs were announced on 11 December 2008. The selection jury consisted of Timo Steiner, Owe Petersell, Siim Nestor, Toomas Puna, Erik Morna, Ingrid Kohtla, Kaupo Karelson, Valner Valme, Sten Sheripov, Koit Raudsepp and Helen Sildna.[8]
Among the competing artists were previous Eurovision Song Contest entrants Köök, who represented Estonia as member of Ruffus in 2003, Laura, who represented Estonia in 2005 as part of the group Suntribe, and Lowry, who represented Estonia as member of 2XL in 2001 together with Tanel Padar and Dave Benton.[9][10]
The final took place on 7 March 2009 at the ERR studios in Tallinn, hosted by Henry Kõrvits and Robert Kõrvits.[11][12] Ten songs competed during the show and the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a jury (50%) and public televote (50%) determined the top two entries to proceed to the superfinal: "Rändajad" performed by Urban Symphony and "See päev" performed by Traffic.[13][14] The public vote in the first round registered 22,809 votes. In the superfinal, "Rändajad" performed by Urban Symphony was selected as the winner entirely by a public televote.[5][6] The public televote in the superfinal registered 26,475 votes. The jury panel that voted in the first round of the final consisted of Anne Erm, Jaanus Nõgisto, Birgit Õigemeel, Siim Nestor, Mare Väljataga, Owe Petersell, Helen Sildna, Ardo Ran Varres, Marju Marynel Kuut, Erik Morna and Jaagup Kreem.
Since Estonia came 18th in the semi-final of the 2008 contest they had to compete in one of the two semi-finals in Moscow. At the second semi-final on 14 May Estonia and Urban Symphony performed 18th in the running order, following Ukraine and preceding the Netherlands. The group qualified Estonia to the finals for the first time in the country's history since the semi-finals were introduced in 2004.
At the final on 16 May Urban Symphony performed 15th in the running order, following Malta and preceding Denmark and finished 6th.
Split results
In the Final Estonia came 6th with 129 points: the public awarded Estonia 6th place with 129 points and the jury awarded 5th place with 124 points.