Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest

Cyprus
Member station	CyBC
National selection events	Internal selection 1981–1983 ; 1985–1987 ; 1989 ; 2002–2003 ; 2007 ; 2013 ; 2016–2020 ; National final 1984 ; 1990–2000 ; 2004–2006 ; 2008–2012 ; 2015 ;
Participation summary
Appearances	36 (30 finals)
First appearance	1981
Best result	2nd: 2018
External links
	CyBC page
	Cyprus's page at Eurovision.tv
	For the most recent participation see; Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Cyprus has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 36 times since making its debut in 1981. Cyprus' first entry was the group Island, who finished sixth. The country's best result in the contest is a second-place finish with Eleni Foureira in 2018.

Cyprus failed to qualify from the semi-final round for six out of eight years (2006–2013), before not returning for the 2014 contest. On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed Cyprus' return to the contest for 2015, with the country then reaching the final five times in a row in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

History

Since its first entry, Cyprus has participated every year except 1988, 2001 and 2014. In 1988, Cyprus withdrew its entry after broadcaster CyBC determined that the intended entry was ineligible; the song had been entered (but not selected) in the 1984 national selection process, which was a violation of the Cypriot selection rules. In 2001, the country did not qualify for the contest due to insufficiently high average scores in previous contests, according to the qualification process at the time. In 2014, the broadcaster decided to not participate in the contest and cited public indifference, public opinion regarding the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, and related budget restrictions as factors for not taking part.[1] On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed their return to the contest in 2015.[2][3] Cyprus hosted the Eurovision Song Project, which included 2 semi-finals, 1 second chance round and a final.[4][5]

Since their return in 2015 the country has never failed to qualify, and even made their best result with Eleni Foureira coming second in 2018. As of 2019, Cyprus held the record for the most times competing in the Eurovision Song Contest without a single win with 36 entries into the contest. Most of the Cypriot entries have been sung in Greek or English; the exceptions are in 2000, in which the song "Nomiza" included both Greek and Italian, and in the 2007 contest, in which Evridiki performed "Comme Ci, Comme Ça" entirely in French.

Voting

The annual exchange of the maximum 12 points with Greece in the Semi Final and Final has become an amusingly predictable occurrence which is now often met with derision from the audience, but there have been exceptions. The last time Cyprus gave Greece fewer than 12 points was in 2015 (8 points). Since the advent of televoting in 1998, the two countries have consistently given each other the maximum 12 points until the 2015 Contest, where neither country gave their 12 to the other, but curiously both gave them to Italy.

Cyprus and Turkey never exchanged votes until 2003, a taboo attributed to the ongoing Cyprus dispute.

Popularity of the contest

Since its first entry in 1981, Cyprus has had a mixture of good and bad results. The best result achieved so far is a second place, reached by Eleni Foureira at the 2018 Contest.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Cyprus had managed to reach the top 10 a number of times, something which made the Contest become popular in the Cypriot public. Since 2004, Cyprus' performance has dropped notably. From 2006 to 2009 and again in 2011 & 2013, the country didn't manage to reach the final.

At the same time when Cyprus' performance in the contest dropped vertically, Greece's performance improved very fast by one win and seven top ten results in one decade. This created a shift of interest, with the Cypriot public being more interested in the success of the Greek entry. This is probably because Greece, since 2004, seems to send very popular singers that have a well established fan-club in Cyprus, while Cyprus usually elects their contestants through an open talent contest, which often results in somewhat unknown artists representing the country.

Contestants

Table key
2	Second place
◁	Last place
X	Entry selected but did not compete

Year	Artist	Language	Title	Final	Points	Semi	Points
1981	Island	Greek	"Monika" (Μόνικα)	6	69	No semi-finals
1982	Anna Vissi	Greek	"Mono i agapi" (Μόνο η αγάπη)	5	85
1983	Stavros & Constantina	Greek	"I agapi akoma zi" (Η αγάπη ακόμα ζει)	16	26
1984	Andy Paul	Greek	"Anna Maria Lena" (Άννα Μαρία Λένα)	15	31
1985	Lia Vissi	Greek	"To katalava arga" (Το κατάλαβα αργά)	16	15
1986	Elpida	Greek	"Tora zo" (Τώρα ζω)	20 ◁	4
1987	Alexia	Greek	"Aspro mavro" (Άσπρο-μαύρο)	7	80
1988	Yiannis Dimitrou	Greek	"Thimame" (Θυμάμαι)	Withdrawn X
1989	Yiannis Savvidakis & Fani Polymeri	Greek	"Apopse as vrethoume" (Απόψε ας βρεθούμε)	11	51
1990	Haris Anastazio	Greek	"Milas poli" (Μιλάς πολύ)	14	36
1991	Elena Patroklou	Greek	"SOS"	9	60
1992	Evridiki	Greek	"Teriazoume" (Ταιριάζουμε)	11	57
1993	Kyriakos Zympoulakis & Dimos Van Beke	Greek	"Mi stamatas" (Μη σταματάς)	19	17	Kvalifikacija za Millstreet
1994	Evridiki	Greek	"Eimai anthropos ki ego" (Είμαι άνθρωπος κι εγώ)	11	51	No semi-finals
1995	Alex Panayi	Greek	"Sti fotia" (Στη φωτιά)	9	79	No semi-finals
1996	Constantinos	Greek	"Mono gia mas" (Μόνο για μας)	9	72	15	42
1997	Hara & Andreas Constantinou	Greek	"Mana mou" (Μάνα μου)	5	98	No semi-finals
1998	Michalis Hatzigiannis	Greek	"Genesis" (Γένεσις)	11	37
1999	Marlain	Greek	"Tha 'nai erotas" (Θα 'ναι έρωτας)	22	2
2000	Voice	Greek, Italian	"Nomiza" (Νόμιζα)	21	8
2002	One	English	"Gimme"	6	85
2003	Stelios Constantas	English	"Feeling Alive"	20	15
2004	Lisa Andreas	English	"Stronger Every Minute"	5	170	5	149
2005	Constantinos Christoforou	English	"Ela Ela (Come Baby)" (Ελα Ελα)	18	46	Top 12 previous year[lower-alpha 1]
2006	Annet Artani	English	"Why Angels Cry"	Failed to qualify		15	57
2007	Evridiki	French	"Comme ci, comme ça"			15	65
2008	Evdokia Kadí	Greek	"Femme Fatale"			15	36
2009	Christina Metaxa	English	"Firefly"			14	32
2010	Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders	English	"Life Looks Better in Spring"	21	27	10	67
2011	Christos Mylordos	Greek	"San aggelos s'agapisa" (Σαν άγγελος σ'αγάπησα)	Failed to qualify		18	16
2012	Ivi Adamou	English	"La La Love"	16	65	7	91
2013	Despina Olympiou	Greek	"An me thimasai" (Aν με θυμάσαι)	Failed to qualify		15	11
2015	Giannis Karagiannis	English	"One Thing I Should Have Done"	22	11	6	87
2016	Minus One	English	"Alter Ego"	21	96	8	164
2017	Hovig	English	"Gravity"	21	68	5	164
2018	Eleni Foureira	English[lower-alpha 2]	"Fuego"	2	436	2	262
2019	Tamta	English	"Replay"	13	109	9	149
2020	Sandro	English	"Running"	Contest cancelled[lower-alpha 3] X

Awards

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Year	Category	Song	Composer(s) lyrics (l) / music (m)	Performer	Final	Points	Host city	Ref.
2004	Composer Award	"Stronger Every Minute"	Mike Konnaris (m & l)	Lisa Andreas	5	170	Istanbul	[6]
2018	Artistic Award[lower-alpha 4]	"Fuego"	Alex Papaconstantinou, Geraldo Sandell, Viktor Svensson, Anderz Wrethov Didrick	Eleni Foureira	2	436	Lisbon	[7]

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

The public broadcaster of each participating country in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers and backing vocalists, among others.[8]

Year	Head of delegation	Ref.
2007–present	Evi Papamichael	[9][10][11]

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Commentator	Radio commentator	Spokesperson	Ref.
1981	Fryni Papadopoulou	Neophytos Taliotis	Anna Partelidou
1982
1983
1984	Pavlos Pavlou
1985	Themis Themistokleous
1986	Neophytos Taliotis	Pavlos Pavlou
1987	Fryni Papadopoulou	Pavlos Pavlou
1988	Daphne Bokota (for ERT and RIK)	No radio broadcast	Did not participate
1989	Neophytos Taliotis	Pavlos Pavlou	Anna Partelidou
1990	Neophytos Taliotis
1991	Evi Papamichael
1992
1993
1994
1995	Neophytos Taliotis		Andreas Iakovidis
1996	Evi Papamichael		Marios Skordis
1997			Marios Skordis
1998			Marina Maleni
1999			Marina Maleni
2000			Loukas Hamatsos
2001		No radio broadcast	Did not participate
2002		Pavlos Pavlou	Melani Steliou
2003		Pavlos Pavlou	Loukas Hamatsos
2004		No radio broadcast	Loukas Hamatsos
2005			Melani Steliou
2006			Constantinos Christoforou
2007	Vaso Komninou		Giannis Haralambous
2008	Melina Karageorgiou		Hristina Marouhou
2009		Nathan Morley	Sophia Paraskeva
2010		Nathan Morley	Christina Metaxa
2011		No radio broadcast	Loukas Hamatsos
2012		No radio broadcast
2013		Melina Karageorgiou
2014		No radio broadcast	Did not participate
2015		Melina Karageorgiou	Loukas Hamatsos
2016		Melina Karageorgiou	Loukas Hamatsos
2017	Tasos Tryfonos and Christiana Artemiou	Tasos Tryfonos and Christiana Artemiou	John Karayiannis
2018	Costas Constantinou and Vaso Komninou	No radio broadcast	Hovig	[12][13]
2019	Evridiki and Tasos Trifonos	Unknown	Hovig	[14][15]

Photogallery

Alex Panayi in Dublin (1995)
Lisa Andreas in Istanbul (2004)
Evridiki in Helsinki (2007)
Evdokia Kadí in Belgrade (2008)
Christina Metaxa in Moscow (2009)
Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders in Oslo (2010)
Despina Olympiou in Malmö (2013)
Giannis Karagiannis in Vienna (2015)
Minus One in Stockholm (2016)
Hovig in Kiev (2017)
Eleni Foureira in Lisbon (2018)
Tamta in Tel Aviv (2019)

Notes

According to the then-Eurovision rules, the top ten non-Big Four countries from the previous year along with the Big Four automatically qualified for the Grand Final without having to compete in semi-finals. For example, if Germany and France placed inside the top ten, the 11th and 12th spots were advanced to next year's Grand Final along with all countries ranked in the top ten.
Although the lyrics are in English, the Spanish title 'Fuego' (fire) is repeated throughout the song.
The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Voted by previous winners.

References

Jiandani, Sanjay (3 October 2013). "Eurovision 2014: Cyprus will not participate in Copenhagen". ESCtoday. Retrieved 3 October 2013.
"Cyprus to make Eurovision come back in 2015". eurovision.tv. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
Jiandani, Sanjay (14 July 2014). "Cyprus: CyBC confirms participation in Eurovision 2015". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
Xifaras, Billy (14 July 2014). "Cyprus confirms participation, takes cues from Melodifestivalen". Wiwibloggs. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 14 July 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
"Marcel Bezençon Awards". eurovision.tv. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
"Here are the winners of the Marcel Bezençon Awards 2018!". eurovision.tv. 12 May 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
"Heads of Delegation". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
"Christos Mylordos (Cyprus) 2nd press conference". eurovision.tv. 7 May 2011. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
"Israel to perform as 14th in the Grand Final". eurovision.tv. 11 March 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.
"THE VOTING RESULTS OF THE 2ND SEASON OF DEPI EVRATESIL". eurovision.am. 26 February 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
Granger, Anthony (5 March 2018). "Cyprus: CyBC Reveals Commentary Team For Eurovision 2018". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
Granger, Anthony (1 February 2018). "Cyprus: Hovig Announced as Eurovision 2018 Spokesperson". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 11 July 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
Kostikas, Giannis (11 March 2019). "Κύπρος: H Ευρυδίκη κι ο Τάσος Τρύφωνος στον σχολιασμό της φετινής Eurovision!". infecyprus.com (in Greek). Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
Granger, Anthony (18 May 2019). "Cyprus: Hovig To Reveal The Cypriot Juries Results". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.

External links

National Final Cyprus
Points to and from Cyprus eurovisioncovers.co.uk
Music.net.cy - Cyprus National Finals 2010 (in Greek)

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[note2-6] According to the then-Eurovision rules, the top ten non-Big Four countries from the previous year along with the Big Four automatically qualified for the Grand Final without having to compete in semi-finals. For example, if Germany and France placed inside the top ten, the 11th and 12th spots were advanced to next year's Grand Final along with all countries ranked in the top ten.

[7] Although the lyrics are in English, the Spanish title 'Fuego' (fire) is repeated throughout the song.

[8] The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[10] Voted by previous winners.

[Cyprus-1] Jiandani, Sanjay (3 October 2013). "Eurovision 2014: Cyprus will not participate in Copenhagen". ESCtoday. Retrieved 3 October 2013.

[2] "Cyprus to make Eurovision come back in 2015". eurovision.tv. 14 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.

[3] Jiandani, Sanjay (14 July 2014). "Cyprus: CyBC confirms participation in Eurovision 2015". esctoday.com. ESCToday. Retrieved 14 July 2014.

[4] Xifaras, Billy (14 July 2014). "Cyprus confirms participation, takes cues from Melodifestivalen". Wiwibloggs. Retrieved 4 January 2020.

[5] "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 14 July 2014.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[9] "Marcel Bezençon Awards". eurovision.tv. Archived from the original on 16 July 2019. Retrieved 8 December 2019.

[11] "Here are the winners of the Marcel Bezençon Awards 2018!". eurovision.tv. 12 May 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2019.

[12] "Heads of Delegation". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 27 May 2019.

[13] "Christos Mylordos (Cyprus) 2nd press conference". eurovision.tv. 7 May 2011. Retrieved 15 March 2020.

[14] "Israel to perform as 14th in the Grand Final". eurovision.tv. 11 March 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2020.

[15] "THE VOTING RESULTS OF THE 2ND SEASON OF DEPI EVRATESIL". eurovision.am. 26 February 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2019.

[16] Granger, Anthony (5 March 2018). "Cyprus: CyBC Reveals Commentary Team For Eurovision 2018". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 27 April 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.

[17] Granger, Anthony (1 February 2018). "Cyprus: Hovig Announced as Eurovision 2018 Spokesperson". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 11 July 2018. Retrieved 4 January 2020.

[18] Kostikas, Giannis (11 March 2019). "Κύπρος: H Ευρυδίκη κι ο Τάσος Τρύφωνος στον σχολιασμό της φετινής Eurovision!". infecyprus.com (in Greek). Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.

[19] Granger, Anthony (18 May 2019). "Cyprus: Hovig To Reveal The Cypriot Juries Results". eurovoix.com. Archived from the original on 18 May 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.