Germany has decided to revamp its selection process for Eurovision and opted for an internal selection in order to select its Eurovision act and entry for Rotterdam.

NDR is set to unveil the 2020 German Eurovision entry and act on 27 February. The 2020 German act and entry has been determined via an internal selection (Eurovision jury and international expert jury).

How has Germany selected its Eurovision hopeful and entry for Rotterdam?

German broadcaster, NDR, has decided to place the selection of the German entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in the hands of experts. Two independent juries have determined who will be representing Germany in Rotterdam: a Eurovision Jury composed of 100 persons from all over Germany and an international expert jury of  20 music professionals. These music professionals have all been part of their home country’s national ESC jury at one time. At the Eurovision Song Contest half of the points that are awarded come from the viewers and half from the national juries. The NDR based its process on this principle.

In a multi-stage process these two juries have evaluated both the artists and the songs. Who will be competing for Germany in the ESC finals, and what will be Germany’s song will be broadcasted on ONE on Thursday, 27 February, at 9:30 p.m. in Our Song for Rotterdam. The 45-minute show will be presented by Barbara Schöneberger.

 

Thomas Schreiber (Head of Entertainment at ARD) says:

Of course we were unhappy with our result in Tel Aviv. In Rotterdam we want to repeat the success we had in 2018. The national and international experts were enthusiastic about our act, and it prevailed in competition with a group of fantastic participants. We are confident that our selection will meet with very broad approval among the ESC fans and – we hope – with great enthusiasm.

Christian Blenker (Head of ARD’s ESC Team) says:

Our two juries possess great musical expertise and a unique ESC instinct. Through this process we have also gained much more time for preparing the staging. We already have received the initial exciting ideas provided by internationally successful choreographers and staging professionals. In addition, the more than 600 artists who were present during the selection process are still protected. None of them has lost, and some of them may be participating again in the coming year.

Last April, some 2.26 million people in Germany were invited via the social media to be part of the Eurovision jury. At the end, 15,000 people took part in the online survey. In the run-up to the ESC 2019 in Tel Aviv, they had to predict the rankings of ten randomly selected ESC entries of that year and thus demonstrate their feel for a sound assessment of ESC entries. The best 100 of them were selected. The members of the international jury of experts were also selected according to whose assessment was very close to the actual results.

Alexandra Wolfslast (German Head of Delegation) says:

We know that many fans have been waiting for information for a long time. But we needed the time to concentrate on the many things we need to prepare for Rotterdam. We are pleased that we will be able to present this fantastic act on February 27th.

Germany in Eurovision

Germany debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 and is one of the founder members of the competition. The country has won the competition twice, namely in 1982 (Nicole) and 2010 (Lena). The Germans have participated in every single edition of our beloved competition with the exception of 1996 when the country was relegated as it didn’t qualify from the pre-qualification round (a mechanism which was introduced in 1996 and removed the following year).

In 2019 Germany was represented by female duo S!sters with their song Sister, achieving a 25th placing in the Grand Final.