Kvalifikacija za Millstreet

The Eurovision Song Contest is an internationally televised songwriting competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed by a chosen artist, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner.[1] Originally held in 1956 with seven competing countries, the contest quickly began to grow as more countries became interested in participating, and by the early 1990s entries from over 20 countries were regularly featured in each year's event.[2][3][4]

By 1992, an increasing number of countries had begun expressing an interest in participating in the contest for the first time. This was a result of revolutions leading to the fall of communist regimes in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the formation of new countries due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.[5][6] To accommodate this new interest, the EBU expanded the maximum number of participating countries for the 1993 contest to twenty-five, with entries from three new countries joining twenty-two of the twenty-three countries which had participated in the 1992 event. Yugoslavia was unable to participate after its EBU member broadcaster Jugoslovenska radiotelevizija (JRT) was disbanded in 1992 and its successor organisations Radio-televizija Srbije (RTS) and Radio-televizija Crne Gore (RTCG) were barred from joining the union due to sanctions against the country as part of the Yugoslav Wars.[4][7][8]

In order to determine which countries would progress to the contest proper, a preselection round was held for the first time in the contest's history, with the top three countries in this round progressing to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 held in Millstreet, Ireland. This contest, Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia and was produced by the Slovenian public broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO).[5][6][7] Originally planned to be held in Portorož,[9][10] the event was ultimately held in Studio 1 of Televizija Slovenija, with Edo Brzin serving as executive producer, Peter Juratovec serving as director and Jože Spacal serving as designer.[11][12] Petar Ugrin and Mojmir Sepe served as joint musical directors and were responsible for leading the RTVSLO Revue Orchestra during the event; a separate musical director could be nominated by each country to conduct the orchestra during their performance.[11][13][14]

Initially broadcasters in as many as fourteen countries registered their interest in competing in the Eurovision Song Contest's first preselection event, including broadcasters in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine.[9][15][16] By February 1993, however, the number of competing countries had dropped to six, comprising planned entries from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia. Subsequently Bulgaria's planned entry did not materialise, however Estonia and Slovakia joined the contest, resulting in seven countries competing in total for the three spots available in Millstreet.[6][10]

Participants of Kvalifikacija za Millstreet[14][17][18]

Country	Broadcaster	Artist	Song	Language	Songwriter(s)	Conductor
Bosnia and Herzegovina	RTVBiH	Fazla	"Sva bol svijeta"	Bosnian	Dino Dervišhalidović Fahrudin Pecikoza	Esad Arnautalić
Croatia	HRT	Put	"Don't Ever Cry"	Croatian, English	Andrej Baša Đorđe Novković	Andrej Baša
Estonia	ETV	Janika Sillamaa	"Muretut meelt ja südametuld"	Estonian	Leelo Tungal Andres Valkonen	Peeter Lilje
Hungary	MTV	Andrea Szulák	"Árva reggel"	Hungarian	Emese Hatvani György Jakab László Pásztor	Petar Ugrin
Romania	TVR	Dida Drăgan	"Nu pleca"	Romanian	Dida Drăgan Adrian Ordean	George Natsis
Slovakia	STV	Elán	"Amnestia na neveru"	Slovak	Ján Baláž Boris Filan Jozef Ráž	Vladimir Valovič
Slovenia	RTVSLO	1X Band	"Tih deževen dan"	Slovene	Tomaž Kosec Cole Moretti	Petar Ugrin

Janika Sillamaa represented Estonia in the contest.

Kvalifikacija za Millstreet took place on 3 April 1993 and was presented by Tajda Lekše.[17]

The three countries that received the most votes and progressed to the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 were Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.[5][7][17] As former constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, all three countries had previously been represented in the Eurovision Song Contest through entries sent by Yugoslavia.[19] Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, which failed to progress through Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, made their contest debuts the following year following the introduction of a relegation system which resulted in the lowest-scoring countries from the 1993 contest being replaced by new countries in the 1994 event.[5][20]

Results of Kvalifikacija za Millstreet[17][21]

R/O	Country	Artist	Song	Points	Place
1	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Fazla	"Sva bol svijeta"	52	2
2	Croatia	Put	"Don't Ever Cry"	51	3
3	Estonia	Janika Sillamaa	"Muretut meelt ja südametuld"	47	5
4	Hungary	Andrea Szulák	"Árva reggel"	44	6
5	Romania	Dida Drăgan	"Nu pleca"	38	7
6	Slovenia	1X Band	"Tih deževen dan"	54	1
7	Slovakia	Elán	"Amnestia na neveru"	50	4

Ismeta Dervoz-Krvavac, the Bosnia and Herzegovina juror, previously represented Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1976 as a member of the group Ambasadori.[17][22]

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. As telephone communications could not be relied upon to reach juries based in the competing countries, one juror from each country was sent to Slovenia in order to provide votes for their respective country. These jurors were located in the same venue as the performers and announced their votes live and on camera during the voting segment. Each juror awarded twelve points to their favourite entry, followed by ten points to their second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to five for the remaining songs, excluding the entry from their own country.[12][17] The respective jurors from each country and the detailed breakdown of the points awarded is listed in the tables below.[13][17]

Jurors

The contest was broadcast via the EBU's Eurovision network, with EBU member broadcasters able to relay the contest via their broadcast channels. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers.[23] Broadcasters in all competing countries, as well as broadcasters in Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Spain, relayed the event either live or delayed.[6][13] Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

Broadcasters and commentators in participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Bosnia and Herzegovina	RTVBiH			[6]
Croatia	HRT	HRT 1	Aleksandar Kostadinov	[12][24]
Estonia	ETV		Olavi Pihlamägi	[12][25]
Hungary	MTV	MTV1	István Vágó	[12][26]
Romania	TVR	TVR 1		[27]
Slovakia	STV	STV2		[26]
Slovenia	RTVSLO	SLO 1	Gregor Krajc	[12][28]
		Val 202		[28]

Broadcasters and commentators in non-participating countries

Country	Broadcaster	Channel	Commentator(s)	Ref(s)
Denmark	DR[lower-alpha 1]	DR TV		[29]