Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest

2007

In April 2006 ČT officially confirmed their presence at the 2007 Contest in Helsinki, Finland.^[6]

ČT held a national final to select the first Czech entry. Eurosong 2007 featured 10 songs, with the public voting for the winner through SMS voting. However one song was withdrawn before the show began, leaving only 9 songs to compete. The winner was rock band Kabát with the song "Malá dáma".^[7] At the contest's semi-final on 10 May 2007 the Czech Republic performed 16th in the semi-final, however only received one point (which came from Estonia) from the televoters around Europe.

2008

For the 2008 Contest in Belgrade, Serbia, ČT again held a national final to select the entry for the country. 10 acts again competed for the chance to represent the Czech Republic in Serbia, with the winner of Eurosong 2008 being Tereza Kerndlová with "Have Some Fun".^[8] At the second semi-final of Eurovision 2008 Kerndlová performed 8th in the running order, receiving 9 points for her performance (1 points from Turkey and Malta, 2 points from Croatia and 5 points from Macedonia), placing 18th of 19 entries, and failing once again to qualify the Czech Republic to the final.

2009

Despite placing in the bottom two twice, ČT confirmed that they would participate at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia. ČT decided to hold an internal selection for the artist who would represent the country at the contest in Russia, with a public vote on the song they would sing. The broadcaster chose Romani band Gipsy.cz in January 2009 to compete in Moscow – the band had previously competed in the two previous national finals, coming both times in the top three.^[9] Two songs were presented to the Czech public to vote on: "Aven Romale" and "Do You Wanna".^[10] After voting had concluded after 14 days, the final winner was "Aven Romale", which featured lead singer Radoslav Banga dressing-up as a super-hero character, Super Gypsy.^[11]

The group performed 2nd on the night of the first semi-final of the contest, held on 12 May 2009. However the group managed to receive nul points from the 20 countries voting in the semi-final, becoming the 16th entry to achieve this result since the current voting method was introduced in 1975.

Withdrawal

On 22 July 2009 ČT officially announced their withdrawal from the 2010 Contest, stating a lack of interest from the Czech public to the contest and poor viewing figures for the shows.^[1]

Return

Despite a July 2014 statement by ČT that the Czech Republic would not participate in Eurovision 2015,^[12] ČT announced on 19 November 2014 that the Czech Republic would in fact participate at Eurovision 2015 with a song to be chosen by an expert panel from a field of five specially commissioned nominees.^[13] The song however failed to qualify from the semi-final. However it did give the Czech Republic their best score and placed 13th with 33 points. On 31 August 2015, ČT announced that it would participate in the 2016 edition, in-which the Czech Republic qualified to the final for the first time in the contest's history. The placement in the final was 25 out of 26 countries. The televoting gave the Czech Republic zero points and the juries gave 41 points. The following year, Martina Barta was internally selected to perform "My Turn," and finished thirteenth in her semi-final.

2018

The Czech Republic returned to a national selection for the 2018 contest, deciding their contestant by a combined online vote and an international jury of former Eurovision competitors. The winner was "Lie to Me" by Mikolas Josef. He performed the song in the Ukrainian national selection show and at Eurovision pre-parties in Riga, London, Tel Aviv, Amsterdam, and Madrid. At the first dress rehearsal for semi-final 1, Josef injured his back while performing a backflip. He was transferred to several hospitals and was temporarily unable to walk, but still promised to perform by the time of the first semi-final. The choreography was adjusted to accommodate his injury, and his performance earned the Czech Republic their second appearance in the grand final. At the grand final, Josef performed the original choreography, complete with a front-flip that did not result in injury. "Lie to Me" wound up placing fifteenth in the jury vote and fourth in the televote, resulting in a sixth place overall. This marked the Czech Republic's first-ever appearance in the top ten and first time receiving televote points in the final. Following the contest, Head of Delegation Jan Bors confirmed that the national selection model would be used in future contest appearances as a result of Josef's success.