Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016
| Eurovision Song Contest 2016 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |
 Croatia
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| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Internal Selection | |||
| Selection date(s) |
Artist: 24 February 2016 Song: 9 March 2016 |
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| Selected entrant | Nina Kraljić | |||
| Selected song | "Lighthouse" | |||
| Selected songwriter(s) | Andreas Grass Nikola Paryla |
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| Finals performance | ||||
| Semi-final result |
Qualified (10th, 133 points) |
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| Final result | 23rd, 73 points | |||
| Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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Croatia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "Lighthouse" written by Andreas Grass and Nikola Paryla. The song was performed by Nina Kraljić. Croatia returned to the Eurovision Song Contest after a two-year absence following their withdrawal in 2014 due to financial limitations and poor results at the contest. Nina Kraljić was selected internally by the Croatian broadcaster Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) on 24 February 2016 to represent Croatia at the 2016 contest in , Sweden. Her song "Lighthouse" was presented to the public on 9 March 2016 during a special radio programme broadcast on the HR 2 station.
Croatia was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2016. Performing during the show in position 5, "Lighthouse" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. This was Croatia's first qualification to the final in seven years; their last appearance in the final was in 2009. It was later revealed that Croatia placed tenth out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 133 points. In the final, Croatia performed in position 17 and placed twenty-third out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 73 points.
Prior to the 2016 Contest, Croatia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-one times since its first entry in 1993. The nation's best result in the contest was fourth, which it achieved on two occasions: in 1996 with the song "Sveta ljubav" performed by Maja Blagdan and in 1999 with the song "Marija Magdalena" performed by Doris Dragović. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004, Croatia had thus far featured in five finals. Between 2010 and 2013, the Croatian entries failed to qualify from the semi-finals; the last time Croatia competed in the final was in 2009 with the song "Lijepa Tena" performed by Igor Cukrov featuring Andrea.
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