This week thirty five countries will compete for a place in the grand final on Saturday May 18th. Who will make it through? (Come on Ireland!)
This year singer Sarah McTernan is flying the flag for Ireland. Sarah will perform “22”at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv in Israel this May.
The two Semi Finals take place on Tuesday May 14th and Thursday May 16th at 8pm on RTÉ2. Ireland will take part in the second semi final on Thursday.
The Eurovision Song Contest Final takes place on Saturday May 18th (Week 21) and will be broadcast live on RTÉ One.
The ESC is the largest entertainment show in the world and is consistently one of the most popular annual television events both in Ireland and across Europe. Last year’s Eurovision, hosted by Lisbon in Portugal reached a total of 186 million viewers. In addition, there were 6.6 million live streaming sessions in 198 territories across the three shows on the official YouTube channel, an increase of 10% compared to last year. 2.2 million unique viewers tuned in for the Grand Final on YouTube.
Ireland still holds the record for most Eurovision wins with seven songs:
1970 Dana All Kinds of Everything
1980 Johnny Logan What’s Another Year
1987 Johnny Logan Hold Me Now
1992 Linda Martin Why Me?
1993 Niamh Kavanagh In Your Eyes
1994 Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan Rock n Roll Kids
1996 Eimear Quinn The Voice
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2019 – 1st SEMI-FINAL – Tuesday May 14 at 8pm RTÉ2
Live from Tel Aviv in Israel, artists and songs from 17 countries will compete for ten places in next Saturday’s final. In appearance order, they are: Cyprus, Montenegro, Finland, Poland, Solvenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Belarus, Serbia, Belgium, Georgia, Australia, Iceland, Estonia, Portugal, Greece and San Marino.
Viewers in ROI cannot vote tonight.
Further information on the Semi Final 1 countries, acts and songs can be found here:
https://eurovision.tv/event/tel-aviv-2019/first-semi-final/participants
Marty Whelan is in the commentary box for the twenty first year.
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2019 – 2nd SEMI-FINAL – Thursday May 16 at 8pm RTÉ 2
Live from Tel Aviv, Israel, artists and songs from 18 more countries will compete for ten places in next Saturday’s final. In appearance order, they are: Armenia, Ireland, Moldova, Switzerland, Latvia, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Croatia, Malta, Lithuania, Russia, Albania, Norway, The Netherlands, North Macedonia and Azerbaijan
Viewers in ROI can vote tonight for any of the other seventeen songs.
Further information on the Semi Final 2 countries, acts and songs can be found here:
https://eurovision.tv/event/tel-aviv-2019/second-semi-final/participants
More information on Irish entry Sarah McTernan available here:
https://presspack.rte.ie/?p=1639393&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=1637818