Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest

Balance sheet

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Broadcasting company

First participation

2008

Number of participations

12 (as of 2019)

Highest ranking

1 ( 2011 )

Highest Score

302 ( 2019 )

Lowest Score

33 ( 2014 )

Points average (since first post)

150.33 (as of 2019)

Average points per voting country in the 12-point system

3.09 (as of 2019)

This article deals with the history of Azerbaijan as a participant in the Eurovision Song Contest .

Regularity of participation and successes in competition

Ell & Nikki - 2011 winners

Azerbaijan took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in Belgrade in 2008 . Since then, the lead broadcaster has been the public İTV . As early as 2007, the state television broadcaster ATV expressed the wish to send in a report for Azerbaijan. Since ATV was not a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), no participation came about. When İTV joined the EBU in the second half of 2007, Azerbaijan was able to participate in 2008. The other two Caucasian republics, Armenia and Georgia , took part for the first time in 2006 and 2007, respectively. Azerbaijan made its debut in 2008 and was immediately successful: Elnur & Samir successfully qualified for the final and achieved eighth place with 132 points. Azerbaijan received twelve points from Turkey and Hungary . In the following year, however, this result was still exceeded. Finally, AySel & Arash reached 2nd place in the semifinals and were thus successfully qualified for the final. There they ended up in third place with 207 points. In 2010 and 2011, the Azerbaijani entries reached second place in the semi-finals. Safura took 5th place with a drip drop in the final with 145 points. In 2011, however, the great success: The duo Ell & Nikki won Azerbaijan's first victory in the competition. With 221 points, it was also a new high for the country. It was also successful in 2012, when the country first hosted the event. Finally, Sabina Babayeva reached fifth place in the final. With Greece's seventeenth place in the same year, Azerbaijan was the only country that has been among the top ten countries, the top 10, in every participation since the introduction of the semifinal. The country was able to defend this title again in 2013: Farid Mammadov achieved second place and at the same time got the country's highest score to date with 234 points. Curiously, Azerbaijan achieved exactly every place in the top five between 2009 and 2013. This made the country one of the most successful countries in the competition until 2013. From 2014, however, things went downhill for the country.

In 2014 Azerbaijan reached its lowest point in the competition: Dilara Kazimova only reached 22nd place in the final and with 34 points reached the lowest score of Azerbaijan in the competition so far. Thus, for the first time, the country did not reach the top ten. But the following years were not nearly as successful as before 2013. From now on, Azerbaijan achieved many placements in the midfield. Elnur Hüseynov took 12th place in 2015, Samra came in 17th place in 2016 and DiHaj took 14th place in 2017, however, a new low for the country in the competition followed in 2018. The singer Aisel only reached 11th place in the semifinals with her song X My Heart , which is the first time Azerbaijan was eliminated in the semifinals. Thus, in the same year as Romania and Russia , the country lost the status of having qualified for the final every time. However, the other Caucasian republics did not reach the final either, which is the first time since 2005 that no country from the Kakausus region was represented in the final. It wasn't until 2019 that Azerbaijan started to improve again.

The singer Chingiz landed on place 5 in the semifinals, successfully bringing Azerbaijan back to the final. There Chingiz landed in eighth place and thus got the country's first place in the top ten since 2013. With 302 points, he also got a new high score for Azerbaijan.

In total, 8 of the 12 entries ended up in the left half of the table. Overall, Azerbaijan was eliminated only once in the semi-finals and has never reached the last place. With a win, a second and a third place and many other placements among the top ten, Azerbaijan is one of the most successful participants in the competition, despite the lean period from 2014 to 2018.

List of posts

Color legend: - 1st place. - 2nd place. - 3rd place. - Equal points with last place. - Eliminated in the semifinals / in the qualification / in the Eastern European preliminary decision. - no participation / not qualified. - Cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest.      

year	Interpreter	Title Music (M) and Text (T)	language	translation	final		Semi-final / qualification		National preliminary decision
					space	Points	space	Points
2008	Elnur & Samir	Day After Day M: Govhar Hasanzadeh; T: Zahra Badalbeyli	English	day after day	8/25	132	6/19	96	Land of Fire 2008
2009	AySel & Arash	Always M: Arash , Robert Uhlmann, Johan Bejerholm, Marcus Englof, Alex Papaconstantinou; T: Arash , Robert Uhlmann, Elin Wrethov, Anderz Wrethov	English	always	3/25	207	2/19	180	internal selection
2010	Safura	Drip Drop M: Anders Bagge , Stefan Örn; T: Sandra Bjurman	English	Drip, drip	5/25	145	2/17	113	Land of Fire 2010
2011	Ell & Nikki	Running Scared M: Stefan Örn, Sandra Bjurman, Iain Farquharson; T: Stefan Örn, Sandra Bjurman	English	Panic	1 / 25th	221	2/19	122	Milli Seçim Turu 2011
2012	Səbinə Babayeva	When the Music Dies M: Anders Bagge , Johan Kronlund, Sandra Bjurman, Stefan Örn; T: Anders Bagge , Sandra Bjurman, Stefan Örn, Johan Kronlund	English	When the music dies	4/26	150	Qualified directly for the final		Milli Seçim Turu 2012
2013	Farid Mammadov	Hold Me M: Dimitris Kontopoulos; T: John Ballard, Ralph Charlie	English	Hold me	2 / 26th	234	1/17	139	Milli Seçim Turu 2013
2014	Dilara Kazimova	Start a Fire M / T: Stefan Örn, Johan Kronlund, Alessandra Günthardt	English	Start a fire	22/26	33	9/16	57	Böyük tendon 2014
2015	Elnur Hüseynov	Hour of the Wolf M: Nicolas Rebscher, Nicklas Lif, Lina Hansson; T: Sandra Bjurman, Nicolas Rebscher, Nicklas Lif, Lina Hansson	English	Hour of the wolf	12/27	49	10/17	53	internal selection
2016	Samra	Miracle M / T: Amir Aly, "TI Jakke" Erixson, Henrik Wikström	English	wonder	17/26	117	6/18	185	internal selection
2017	Dihaj	Skeletons M: Isa Melikow; T: Sandra Bjurman	English	Skeletons	14/26	120	8/18	150	internal selection
2018	Aisel	X My Heart M: Dimitris Kontopoulos; T: Sandra Bjurman	English	Stroke my heart	Eliminated		11/19	94	internal selection
2019	Chingiz	Truth M: Borislav Milanov , Trey Campbell, Bo J, Pablo Dinero, Hostess and Chingiz ; T: Borislav Milanov , Trey Campbell, Bo J, hostess	English	truth	8/26	302	5/18	224	internal selection
2020	Efendi Əfəndiyeva	Cleopatra M / T: Luuk van Beers, Alan Roy Scott, Sarah Lake	English	-	Cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic by the EBU				internal selection
2021	Efendi Əfəndiyeva								internal selection

Preliminary decisions

Some representatives of Azerbaijan were identified through a national preliminary decision, whereby the contributions were largely selected internally. Artist and title were only determined together in 2008 and 2013. In 2009 and since 2015, Azerbaijan has waived a national preliminary decision and since then has been selecting both the artist and the song internally. Nevertheless, the country used different formats in previous years to determine the artist.

Land of Fire (2008 and 2010)

In 2008 İctimai held a preliminary decision with six songs and three performers. Unformal, Aynur Isgandarli and Elnur Hüseynov took part with two titles each. The later winner Hüseynov, who was determined 50% by jury voting and 50% by televoting, had presented his second title Day After Day together with Samir Javadzadeh, so that he also represented Azerbaijan at the debut in 2008.

In 2010, on the other hand, the format was retained, televoting was abolished and a semi-final was added. There six performers competed with six songs, three of which made it to the final. There each performer sang three titles, with a seven-member jury named Drip Drop by Səfurə Əlizadə the winner. It is worth mentioning that Elvira Michieva , ex-member of the German girl group Bisou , was among the semi-finalists .

Milli Seçim Turu (2011 to 2013)

In 2011, a casting show with seven preliminary rounds of eleven singers took place under the title Milli Seçim Turu . The winner from each qualified as well as two further candidates from all semifinals for a semifinals. Five of the nine remaining artists were selected for the final. A jury decided to nominate Nigar Camal and Eldar Qasımov as a duo for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. As in the previous year, her entry Running Scared was selected later. This system was also used in 2012.

In 2013, at least the final show of Milli Seçim Turu was fundamentally changed, as the songs were already being presented to the audience at this point and a jury selected the contribution and associated performers, in this case Farid Mammadov with his song Hold Me .

Böyük tendon (2014)

For the first time in 2014 the casting show Böyük Sehne was used as a preliminary decision. The last three finalists were selected through three casting shows. Here won Dilara Kazimova . The contribution was determined internally and presented on March 15, 2014.

languages

Azerbaijan, along with Australia and the United Kingdom , is one of the three countries that presented all of its contributions in English .

List of commentators and points speakers

This list of commentators and points speakers begins with the start of television broadcasts in Azerbaijan.

year	Commentators	Points speaker
2007	Leyla Əliyeva Murad Arif	No participation
2008	Hüsniyya Maharramova Isa Melikov	Leyla Əliyeva
2009	Leyla Əliyeva Isa Melikov	Hüsniyya Maharramova
2010	Husniyya Maharramova	Tamilla Shirinova
2011	Leyla Aliyeva	Səfurə Əlizadə
2012	Konul Arifgizi Saleh Bagirov
2013	Konul Arifgizi	Tamilla Shirinova
2014		Səbinə Babayeva
2015	Kamran Guliyev	Tural Asadov
2016	Azer Suleymanli
2017
2018
2019	Murad Arif	Faig Agayev
2020	Competition canceled

Competitions held

year	city	venue	Moderation
2012	Baku	Bakı Kristal Zalı	Leyla Əliyeva , Eldar Qasımov & Nargiz Birk-Petersen

Scoring

The following countries received the most points from or awarded the most points to Azerbaijan (as of 2019):

Most of the points awarded in the final space country Points 1  Russia 106 2  Ukraine 094 3  Turkey 048 4th  Georgia 043 5  Moldova 041

Most in the final received points space country Points 1  Russia 112 2  Georgia 108 3  Moldova 095 4th  Ukraine 088 5  Malta 073

Most of the points awarded space country Points 1  Russia 182 2  Ukraine 138 3  Greece 097 4th  Moldova 093 5  Georgia 089

Most total obtained points space country Points 1  Russia 187 2  Moldova 165 3  Georgia 156 4th  Malta 124 5  Ukraine 117

Award of the highest rating

Since 2008, Azerbaijan has awarded the highest number of points in the final to seven different countries, six of them to Russia. In the semifinals, however, Azerbaijan awarded the highest number of points to eleven different countries, four of which went to Russia.

Highest rating (final) year country Place (final) 2008  Turkey 7th 2009  Turkey 4th 2010  Turkey 2 2011  Ukraine 4th 2012  Turkey 7th 2013  Ukraine 3 2014  Russia 7th 2015  Russia 2 2016  Russia (J&T) 3 2017  Belarus (J) 17th  Bulgaria (T) 2 2018  Albania (J) 11  Israel (T) 1 2019  Russia (J&T) 3 2020 Competition canceled

Highest rating (semi-finals) year country Place (semifinals) 2008  Greece 1 2009  Norway 1 2010  Turkey 1 2011  Turkey 13 2012  Albania 2 2013  Malta 4th 2014  Ukraine 5 2015  Slovenia 5 2016  Russia (J&T) 1 2017  Portugal (J) 1  Georgia (T) 11 2018  Belarus (J&T) 16 2019  Russia (J&T) 6th 2020 Competition canceled

Impressions

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  Elnur & Samir 2008

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  Aysel & Arash 2009

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  Safura 2010

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  Sabina Babayeva 2012

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  Farid Mammadov 2013

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  Dilara Kazimova 2014

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  Elnur Hüseynov 2015

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  Samra, 2016

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  Dihaj 2017

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  Aisel 2018

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  Chingiz 2019

Individual evidence