#esc spain

Andorra participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, but it has never come back since.

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What happened?

In 2004, ATV (Andorra’s public TV channel) sent Marta Roure, who sang in the Catalan language for the first time in Eurovision history. Catalan is the native language of Andorra, but also of the rest of the Catalan Countries: Catalonia, the Valencian Country and la Franja in the state of Spain; Northern Catalonia in the state of France, and the city of l’Alguer in Italy. ATV didn’t have enough money to send a participant alone, but Andorra wanted to take part in the contest and to promote their language (Catalan) and culture.

For these reasons, they decided to partner with TV3, the public TV channel of Catalonia. This makes sense, given that it’s part of the same nation, with the same language, and Catalonia has a bigger population and a music industry that’s a bit more developed, and TV3 has more money than ATV because of its population and size. The contest to choose who would be sent was made in collaboration between ATV and TV3 and aired simultaneously in both TV channels.

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Spain’s threat to not air Andorra’s song

When TVE (the Spanish TV) saw that Andorra was working with Catalonia and one of Andorra’s purposes for participating in ESC was to promote Andorra’s language (Catalan), the director board of TVE threatened that they would not air Andorra’s performance because they considered it was a way for Catalan people to be present in Eurovision, which they didn’t think should be allowed. Basically, TVE would air the whole contest as usual, but cut to commercials when Andorra performed as if they did not exist.

After negotiations, the directors of TVE did not change their mind, but for unrelated reasons the director was changed in April 2004. The new directors didn’t care as much about Andorra’s participation and they decided to air the whole festival.

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Andorra’s results and TVE’s meddling

Andorra’s songs never did well in the classifications, they never had enough votes to pass to the final. The change arrived in 2009, the song chosen was “Get a life / La teva decisió” by the Andorran-Danish singer Susanne Georgi. After its release before Eurovision, the song was a success in Andorra and in the state of Spain. The hopes were high for the song receiving many votes!

But, last minute, TVE (Spain’s TV) decided to not air live the Eurovision semi-final where Andorra was taking part. TVE decided to record the semi-final and air it on a different day. This means that Spanish citizens (including most Catalan people), who could have voted for Andorra, had no way to watch the semi-final and, as a result, they could not vote.

Once again, Andorra didn’t get to the final. And this was when they thought they had a chance with a successful song! After this, Andorra has never come back to the song contest. The fact that they never qualified for the final, Spain’s continuous meddling, and the high economic cost of participating in ESC (which is very difficult to afford for a microstate’s TV) grew even more difficult with the economical crisis that was starting in all the continent.

However, Andorra has always maintained that they would like to come back to ESC.