| Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest | |
|---|---|
| Eurovision Song Contest | |
 | |
| Participating broadcaster | Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (TRT) |
| Participation summary | |
| Appearances | 34 (33 finals) |
| First appearance | 1975 |
| Last appearance | 2012 |
| Highest placement | 1st:2003 |
| Host | 2004 |
| External links | |
Turkey's page at Eurovision.tv | |
 For the most recent participation seeTurkey in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 | |
Turkey has been represented at theEurovision Song Contest 34 times since its debut in1975. The Turkish participating broadcaster in the contest isTürkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (TRT). Turkey won the contest once in2003, and hosted the2004 contest inIstanbul. Since the introduction of the semi-finals in2004, Turkey has only failed to qualify for the final once, in2011.
Turkey finished last on its debut at the contest in1975, and went on to finish last withnul points in1983 and1987. They reached the top ten for the first time in 1986. "Dinle" performed byŞebnem Paker achieved the country's first top five result in1997, finishing third. The country went on to achieve five more top five placements after the introduction of thefree language rule and televoting, with "Everyway That I Can" bySertab Erener giving Turkey its first victory in2003. Turkey's other top five results are "For Real" byAthena (2004), "Shake It UpŞekerim" byKenan Doğulu (2007), "Düm Tek Tek" byHadise (2009), who all finished fourth, and "We Could Be the Same" byManga (2010), who finished second.
TRT announced in December 2012 that it would not participate in the2013 contest, citing dissatisfaction with therules of the competition.[1] 2013 was the first time since1979 that there was no television broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest on TRT. The country has not returned to the contest since.[2][3]
Türkiye Radyoları, the national radio broadcasting service of Turkey, was one of the founding members of theEuropean Broadcasting Union (EBU) in 1950 along with other twenty-two broadcasting organisations; after beginning regular television broadcasts in December 1971, it would renew its EBU membership on 26 August 1972 fold asTürkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu (TRT). Its membership in the EBU is possible since Turkey is within theEuropean Broadcasting Area and is amember of the Council of Europe.
As a full member of the EBU, TRT is eligible to participate in theEurovision Song Contest. It had participated in the contest representing Turkey since its20th edition in 1975 until the57th edition in 2012. TRT televised the contest between1973 and 2012, even during the years in which it did not enter the competition.
Turkey made its debut at the 1975 contest inStockholm.Greece did not take part in the contest for "unknown reasons" according to the EBU, but it was later revealed that the withdrawal was in protest of Turkey's debut and theirinvasion of Cyprus in 1974.[4][5] TRT organized anational final to select the first ever Turkish entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest. The final took place on 9 February 1975 in the studios of TRT and was hosted byBülend Özveren. 106 songs were submitted for the national final.[6] The winning song, "Seninle Bir Dakika" ("A minute with you") bySemiha Yankı, was picked by averaging the ranks from the professional jury and people's jury. At the close of voting during the contest, the song received only three points fromMonaco and placed last.
In1976, Greece's entry to the contest aroused controversy due to its subject matter being the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Turkey withdrew from the contest to protest the political background of Greece's entry, called "Panagia mou, panagia mou." Turkey televised the final on 3 April 1976 but censored the Greek entrant's performance. They played a nationalist Turkish song titled "Memleketim" ("My motherland", the Turkish cover of the Yiddish folk song "Rabbi Elimelekh"), which was one of the symbols of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in Turkey.
Turkey did not take part in the contest again until1978, placing 18th with the song "Sevince" performed by Nazar andNilüfer.[7]
The1979 contest was held inJerusalem. The Turkish entry selected was "Seviyorum" ("I'm in love") by Maria Rita Epik. However, Turkey withdrew from the contest due to pressure from neighboring Arab countries to do so, which arose from the ongoing controversy regarding thestatus of Jerusalem.[8]
Turkey participated in the Eurovision Song Contest consistently throughout the 1980s. In1980, Turkish superstarAjda Pekkan and the song "Petrol" was selected by TRT through a national final. Pekkan placed 15th with 23 points, including the first ever score 12 points received by Turkey, coming fromMorocco.
Turkey had their best result (until 1997) in the1986 contest inBergen, Norway, whenKlips ve Onlar placed ninth with a total of 53 points. The country scorednul points twice in the eighties, first in1983 (shared withSpain) and later in1987. Several famous Turkish artists performed for the contest during the 1980s, including Ajda Pekkan, Neco,Candan Erçetin andMFÖ.
The contest's popularity in Turkey suffered afterKayahan, one of the most famous singers in the country, placed 17th out of 22 participating countries with 21 points. After Kayahan's poor result, Turkey's Eurovision entrants were mostly unknown or amateur singers until2003.
Şebnem Paker represented the country in two consecutive years. The first time being in1996 where she qualified for the final and placed 12th, and the second in1997 where she placed third, behind the UK and Ireland, with the song "Dinle" ("Listen"), sung in Turkish. This was the first time ever Turkey managed to make it in the top three and also it became the most successful result for the country until its victory in 2003. Şebnem Paker returned to theTurkish national final in 1998, but placed fourth and did not qualify for the contest as the Turkish participant for a third consecutive year.Tüzmen represented the country and placed 14th. Turkey participated throughout all of the 1990s except for the1994 contest, from which they were relegated due to their 21st-place finish in 1993.
After thefree language rule was re-introduced in 1999, the first Turkish entry to be partially sung in English was at the2000 contest. The same year, Turkey reached the top 10 for a third since 1986, finishing tenth.
In the late 1990s to early 2000s, the contest became one of the most popular events in Turkey as a result of the participation of other Central and Eastern European countries, andSertab Erener's win in2003 with the song "Everyway That I Can". Following the introduction oftelevoting in 1998, (initially trialed in 1997 and first implemented in Turkey in 2003), Turkey went on to achieve eight top 10 results in the contest.
"Everyway That I Can" was the first Turkish entry in the contest to be sung completely in English. TRT selected the entry through an internal selection mainly organised byOGAE Turkey.
The 2004 contest was held in theAbdi Ipekci Arena, with the first-ever semi-final held on 12 May, followed by the final on 15 May. After Erener's victory (with the exception of the2004 and2005 contests), Turkish entries to the contest were chosen internally. Turkey had always qualified for the final (except for the2011 contest inDüsseldorf) since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004 and always reached the top ten, except in2005 and2006. From 2000, Turkey had seven songs sung in English and four sung in both English and Turkish, with just three (2005,2006, and2008) songs sung entirely in Turkish.
Along with Greece, Turkey brought the contest a new outlook with flashy stage performances and dresses alongside their oriental/Mediterranean-flavoured pop music acts (Sertab Erener,Sibel Tüzün,Kenan Doğulu andHadise). In 2004,2008,2010, and2011, the country was represented by bands, most of them with rock-influenced songs with Ottoman, Eastern European and Balkan instruments.Athena ranked fourth in 2004, when the contest was held in Istanbul;Mor ve Ötesi ranked seventh with a song completely in Turkish in 2008 and thenu metal bandManga, named theBest European Act in theMTV Europe Music Awards 2009, ranked second in 2010.Yüksek Sadakat in 2011 placed 13th in the first semi-final of the contest and failed to qualify, marking the first and only time that Turkey failed to qualify for the final. In 2012, Turkey participated for the last time as of 2012[update] with the song "Love Me Back" byCan Bonomo, which placed seventh in the final with 112 points.
TRT announced that it would not participate in the2013 contest on 14 December 2012, citing dissatisfaction with therules of the competition.[1] TRT specifically cited changes to thevoting system, in which a jury was introduced and the televote's influence was decreased to 50%.[9][10][11] Turkey has not participated in or broadcast the contest since.[12][13][14] In August 2018, İbrahim Eren, the Director-General of TRT, stated that TRT does not plan to return to the contest and break the boycott for various reasons, citingConchita Wurst's participation and eventual victory in 2014.[15][16] The EBU and Eren entered talks on a potential Turkish return ahead of2022 contest;[17] despite this, the country was not on the final list of participants.[18]
| 1 | First place |
| 2 | Second place |
| 3 | Third place |
| ◁ | Last place |
| X | Entry selected but did not compete |
| Artist | Song | Language | AtCongratulations | At Eurovision | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final | Points | Semi | Points | Year | Place | Points | |||
| Sertab Erener | "Everyway That I Can" | English | Failed to qualify | 9 | 104 | 2003 | 1 | 167 | |
| Year | Location | Venue | Presenters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Istanbul | Abdi İpekçi Arena | Korhan Abay andMeltem Cumbul |
| Year | Category | Song | Performer | Final | Points | Host city |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Press Award | "Everyway That I Can" | Sertab Erener | 1 | 167 |  Riga |
| Year | Conductor[c] | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | Timur Selçuk | [19] | |
| 1978 | Onno Tunç | ||
| 1979 | Tuğrul Karataş | [d] | |
| 1980 | Atilla Özdemiroğlu | [20] | |
| 1981 | Onno Tunç | ||
| 1982 | Garo Mafyan | ||
| 1983 | Buğra Uğur | ||
| 1984 | Selçuk Başar | ||
| 1985 | Garo Mafyan | ||
| 1986 | Melih Kibar | ||
| 1987 | Garo Mafyan | ||
| 1988 | Turhan Yükseler | ||
| 1989 | Timur Selçuk | ||
| 1990 | Ümit Eroğlu | ||
| 1991 | Turhan Yükseler | ||
| 1992 | Aydın Özarı | ||
| 1993 | No conductor | ||
| 1995 | Melih Kibar | ||
| 1996 | Levent Çoker | ||
| 1997 | |||
| 1998 | Ümit Eroğlu |
Prior to 2012 every contest Turkey had taken part in had always been commentated on by Turkish television presenterBülend Özveren, with the exception of 1982–1985, 1990–1991, 1998–2001, and 2007. In addition Özveren also co-commentated the contest in 2004, 2011, and 2012. Out of the 38 years Turkey have broadcast the event Özveren has commentated on 29 of them making him nine years short of being the contest's longest commentator.
| Year | Channel | Commentator | Spokesperson | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | TRT Televizyon | Unknown | Did not participate | [21] |
| 1974 | [22] | |||
| 1975 | Unknown | [23] | ||
| 1976 | Did not participate | [24] | ||
| 1977 | Bülend Özveren | [25] | ||
| 1978 | Unknown | Meral Savcı | [26][27] | |
| 1979 | No broadcast | Did not participate | ||
| 1980 | TRT Televizyon | Bülend Özveren | Unknown | [28][29] |
| 1981 | Unknown | [30] | ||
| 1982 | Ümit Tunçağ | [31][32] | ||
| 1983 | Unknown | [33] | ||
| 1984 | Başak Doğru [tr] | Başak Doğru | [34][35] | |
| 1985 | Unknown | [36][37] | ||
| 1986 | Gülgün Baysal | [38][39] | ||
| 1987 | TV1 | Unknown | [40] | |
| 1988 | [41] | |||
| 1989 | Bülend Özveren | [42][43] | ||
| 1990 | Başak Doğru | [44][45] | ||
| 1991 | Unknown | Canan Kumbasar | [46][47] | |
| 1992 | Korhan Abay | |||
| 1993 | TRT 1 | Bülend Özveren | Ömer Önder [tr] | |
| 1994 | Unknown | Did not participate | ||
| 1995 | Ömer Önder | |||
| 1996 | ||||
| 1997 | TRT 1,TRT Int | |||
| 1998 | Bülend Özveren | Osman Erkan | ||
| 1999 | Gülşah Banda | |||
| 2000 | Ömer Önder | |||
| 2001 | Unknown | Meltem Ersan Yazgan | ||
| 2002 | TRT 1 | Ömer Önder | ||
| 2003 | TRT 1, TRT Int | Bülend Özveren | ||
| 2004 | Unknown | |||
| 2005 | TRT 1 | |||
| 2006 | Bülend Özveren | |||
| 2007 | Unknown | |||
| Hakan Urgancı | ||||
| 2008 | TRT 1, TRT Int | Unknown | ||
| TRT Türk(Final) | Bülend Özveren | |||
| 2009 | TRT 1 | Unknown | ||
| 2010 | Bülend Özveren | |||
| 2011 | Bülend Özveren andErhan Konuk [tr] | Ömer Önder | ||
| 2012 | TRT 1,TRT HD,TRT Türk,TRT Müzik,TRT Avaz | |||
| 2013–2025 | No broadcast | Did not participate | ||
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Türkiye'de ise Başak Doğru anlatacak.[Başak Doğru will narrate in Turkey.]
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