Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009
| Eurovision Song Contest 2009 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |
 Lithuania
|
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| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Lietuvos Dainų Daina | |||
| Selection date(s) |
Quarter-finals 10 January 2009 17 January 2009 24 January 2009 Semi-finals 31 January 2009 7 February 2009 Final 14 February 2009 |
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| Selected entrant | Sasha Son | |||
| Selected song | "Love" | |||
| Finals performance | ||||
| Semi-final result | Qualified (9th, 66 points) | |||
| Final result | 23rd, 23 points | |||
| Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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Lithuania confirmed its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. Lithuania were represented by Sasha Son at the contest, singing "Pasiklydęs žmogus" in its English version, "Love", after he won the Lithuanian national final, Lietuvos Dainų Daina.
Shortly after the 2008 South Ossetia war in Georgia, the Estonian Minister of Culture suggested a possible boycott of the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Russia. A similar feeling was felt at the Lithuanian public broadcaster, Lietuvos radijas ir televizija (LRT), who supported Georgia in the conflict and believed that "Russia continues to showcase power and ignores international rules." In the end, no Lithuanian boycott occurred.
Lietuvos Dainų Daina is the new Lithuanian national selection for Eurovision. It will feature well established and local artists, and will not include foreign composers. Songs are encouraged to be in Lithuanian.
Three quarter-finals were held for Lietuvos Dainų Daina, held on 10, 17 and 24 January. From the 12 songs that competed in each semi-final, a total of 36 songs competing, six songs qualified to the semi-finals. Two more songs joined the 18 qualfiers, selected by a jury from the remaining songs.
The first quarter-final of Lietuvos Dainų Daina were held on 10 January 2009, with the songs revealed on 7 January. Six songs were voted by the public to go on to one of the two semi-finals. Ruslanas Kirilkinas was to take part in the contest, however withdrew from the competition, and was replaced by Vita Rusaitytė.
After the semi-final, the voting method used during the show was commented upon, with the non-qualifying artists finding the results "weird and not right". The voting method saw the televotes of 10 regions of Lithuania being converted into points, 1 point for the least favoured and 12 for the most preferred. Alanas, who failed to qualify to the final, said that she found the voting "very bizarre", and that she would like to know how many people voted for her. Augustė, who also failed to qualify, called it "nonsense", commentating on the difference in the amount of votes cast in Vilnius in comparison to smaller towns in Lithuania: "I don't understand how can we compare points of Vilnius and of some small city in Lithuania. In Vilnius we need thousands of votes to get 12 points. Meanwhile in a small city a hundred votes can be enough".
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Wikipedia