Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017


Greece participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "This Is Love" written by Dimitris Kontopoulos, Romy Papadea and John Ballard. The song was performed by Demy. Initially, two artists were to compete in a national final held a national final on 6 March 2017, at which three songs written by Kontopoulos were performed by Demy. The song with the highest percentage was selected represent the country. Eventually, "This Is Love" performed by Demy was selected as the Greek entry for the 2017 in Kiev, Ukraine.
Greece was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 9 May 2017. Performing during the show in position 10, "This Is Love" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 13 May.

Background

Prior to the 2016 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-six times since their debut in. The nation has won the contest on one occasion in with the song "My Number One" performed by Helena Paparizou. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the, Greece has managed to thus far qualify to the final with each of their entries. Between 2004 and 2011, the nation achieved eight consecutive top ten placements in the final. To this point, Greece in with Argo's "Utopian Land" failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, being absent from the final for the first time since 2000. This was Greece's worst result at the contest.
The Greek national broadcaster, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ERT had been in charge of Greece's participation in the contest since their debut in 1974 until 2013 when the broadcaster was shutdown by a government directive and replaced with the interim Dimosia Tileorasi and then later by the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television broadcaster. Following the January 2015 Greek legislative election, a draft proposal was initiated to reinstate ERT as the public Greek broadcaster. On 28 April 2015, the draft was approved and signed into law by the Hellenic Parliament, resulting in the renaming of NERIT to ERT; ERT began broadcasting once again on 11 June 2015. ERT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 28 August 2015. The Greek broadcaster has used various methods to select the Greek entry in the past, such as internal selections and televised national finals to choose the performer, song or both to compete at Eurovision. Since 2010, the Greek entry has been selected via a national final that featured a competition among several artists and songs with the votes of an expert jury and a public televote deciding the Greek Eurovision entry.

Before Eurovision

Internal selection of performer

In December 2016, it was revealed that Demy and the duo Stereo Soul would compete in a national final with two songs each. These rumors continued until 13 January 2017, when ERT officially revealed that Demy would be the representative of the country at the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest. Dimitris Kontopoulos and Fokas Evangelinos were announced officially as the composer and the chorographer respectively.

Ellinikós Telikós 2017

Later the day of Demy's announcement as performer at Eurovision, ERT revealed that Dimitris Kontopoulos will write three songs for Demy, that they would compete in a national final with video clips at late February 2017 where the Greek public, would select their favorite song. Voting to select the song at the national final was conducted through 100% televoting and SMS texting by the public. The three songs were in English language and each one of the songs are in different genres. The first song is a ballad, the second one is a dance song and the third is surprise, Demy said at 19 January, when she was invited by ERT tο gave her first interview after the announcement as the representative of country at Eurovision. The official video clips were recorded in both Greece and Ukraine, especially in the city of Odessa, in order to show the hellenism of the city and to build bridges of friendship between the two countries.
Later, ERT announced the date of the national final, being the 6th of March, with presenters the journalist Elena Bouzala and the actor-comedian Antonis Loudaros. On 28 February 2017, the titles of the songs were announced. The representative of Cyprus, Hovig and the representative of Moldova, SunStroke Project were the guests of the night, singing the Cypriot entry "Gravity" and the Moldovan entry "Hey, Mamma!" respectively.
Initially, ERT announced that the winning song would be selected by 100% televoting. Later, it was announced that for the first time, together with the public, the song would be selected by a jury of Greek communities of the Diaspora.
In particular, their vote gave representatives of communities from Belgium, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Armenia, Italy, Austria and Ukraine. The quota on the ballot was 70% public and 30% jury.

Final

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" 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 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 31 January 2017, 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. Greece was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 9 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.
Once all the competing songs for the 2017 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. Greece was set to perform in position 10, following the entry from Portugal and before the entry from Poland.
The two semi-finals and the final will be televised in Greece on ERT1, ERT HD and ERT World as well as broadcast via radio on ERA 2 and Voice of Greece with commentary by Maria Kozakou and Giorgos Kapoutzidis.

Semi-final

Demy took part in technical rehearsals on 30 April and 4 May, followed by dress rehearsals on 8 and 9 May. This included the jury show on 8 May where the professional juries of each country watched and voted on the competing entries. At the end of the show, Greece was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Greece placed tenth in the semi-final, receiving a total of 115 points: 54 points from the televoting and 61 points from the juries.

Final

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winners' press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the reverse order the countries appeared in the semi-final running order. Greece was drawn to compete in the second half.

Voting

Points awarded to Greece

Points awarded by Greece

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Greek jury: