Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Prior to the 2016 contest, Greece had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest thirty-six times since their debut in 1974.[3] The nation has won the contest on one occasion in 2005 with the song "My Number One" performed by Helena Paparizou. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the 2004, Greece has managed to thus far qualify to the final with each of their entries. Between 2004 and 2011, the nation achieved eight consecutive top ten placements in the final. To this point, Greece in 2016 with Argo's "Utopian Land" failed to qualify from the semi-finals for the first time ever, being absent from the final for the first time since 2000. This was Greece's worst result at the contest.

The Greek national broadcaster, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), broadcasts the event within Greece and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. ERT had been in charge of Greece's participation in the contest since their debut in 1974 until 2013 when the broadcaster was shutdown by a government directive and replaced with the interim Dimosia Tileorasi (DT) and then later by the New Hellenic Radio, Internet and Television (NERIT) broadcaster.[4][5] Following the January 2015 Greek legislative election, a draft proposal was initiated to reinstate ERT as the public Greek broadcaster. On 28 April 2015, the draft was approved and signed into law by the Hellenic Parliament, resulting in the renaming of NERIT to ERT; ERT began broadcasting once again on 11 June 2015.[6][7] ERT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 28 August 2015.[8] The Greek broadcaster has used various methods to select the Greek entry in the past, such as internal selections and televised national finals to choose the performer, song or both to compete at Eurovision. Since 2010, the Greek entry has been selected via a national final that featured a competition among several artists and songs with the votes of an expert jury and a public televote deciding the Greek Eurovision entry.

Demy during a press meet and greet

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot.[10] On 31 January 2017, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Greece was placed into the first semi-final, to be held on 9 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.[11]

Once all the competing songs for the 2017 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Greece was set to perform in position 10, following the entry from Portugal and before the entry from Poland.[12]

The two semi-finals and the final will be televised in Greece on ERT1, ERT HD and ERT World as well as broadcast via radio on ERA 2 and Voice of Greece with commentary by Maria Kozakou and Giorgos Kapoutzidis.[13]

Points awarded by Greece

Semi-final 1 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Cyprus  Armenia 10 points  Portugal  Albania 8 points  Armenia  Azerbaijan 7 points  Moldova  Montenegro 6 points  Georgia  Cyprus 5 points  Albania  Portugal 4 points  Belgium  Georgia 3 points  Sweden  Moldova 2 points  Poland  Sweden 1 point  Finland  Belgium

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Cyprus  Cyprus 10 points  Bulgaria  Azerbaijan 8 points  Portugal  Armenia 7 points  Italy  Moldova 6 points  Moldova  Romania 5 points  Belgium  Portugal 4 points  France  Italy 3 points  Sweden  Belarus 2 points  Armenia  Bulgaria 1 point  Romania  United Kingdom

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Greek jury: [14]

• Vicky Gerotheodorou – Chairperson – lyricist
• Xenia Ghali – composer and producer
• Dimitris Ouggarezos – radio producer
• Akis Anastasiadis – music producer
• Aris Petrakis – performer

Split voting results from Greece (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		X. Ghali	V. Gerothodorou	D. Ouggarezos	A. Anastadiadis	A. Petrakis	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Sweden	1	1	12	16	12	9	2	8	3
02	Georgia	8	9	8	6	9	7	4	5	6
03	Australia	9	5	11	11	11	11		13
04	Albania	6	3	5	4	5	2	10	6	5
05	Belgium	17	11	14	2	2	10	1	7	4
06	Montenegro	5	6	6	3	6	4	7	16
07	Finland	14	10	10	8	13	13		10	1
08	Azerbaijan	2	4	4	7	7	3	8	11
09	Portugal	11	14	1	12	1	6	5	2	10
10	Greece
11	Poland	10	15	13	9	10	14		9	2
12	Moldova	12	8	7	5	8	8	3	4	7
13	Iceland	15	17	16	17	17	17		14
14	Czech Republic	13	13	17	14	15	15		17
15	Cyprus	3	7	2	15	4	5	6	1	12
16	Armenia	7	2	3	1	3	1	12	3	8
17	Slovenia	16	16	15	13	16	16		12
18	Latvia	4	12	9	10	14	12		15

Split voting results from Greece (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		X. Ghali	V. Gerothodorou	D. Ouggarezos	A. Anastadiadis	A. Petrakis	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Israel	18	21	20	25	19	24		16
02	Poland	17	22	22	19	20	22		14
03	Belarus	12	11	8	11	7	8	3	25
04	Austria	16	16	15	10	9	14		20
05	Armenia	9	7	9	2	3	3	8	9	2
06	Netherlands	25	25	3	18	23	19		18
07	Moldova	7	8	6	4	6	4	7	5	6
08	Hungary	23	14	21	17	21	21		11
09	Italy	11	1	13	9	14	7	4	4	7
10	Denmark	22	19	23	7	13	18		19
11	Portugal	8	15	2	16	1	6	5	3	8
12	Azerbaijan	3	4	4	3	5	2	10	17
13	Croatia	21	13	12	12	25	17		13
14	Australia	19	10	19	6	12	15		15
15	Greece
16	Spain	20	17	17	24	22	23		24
17	Norway	14	18	18	21	10	16		21
18	United Kingdom	10	2	10	14	15	10	1	12
19	Cyprus	1	6	1	8	2	1	12	1	12
20	Romania	6	9	5	5	8	5	6	10	1
21	Germany	24	24	25	22	24	25		23
22	Ukraine	15	20	24	20	17	20		22
23	Belgium	13	12	11	13	4	12		6	5
24	Sweden	4	3	14	15	16	11		8	3
25	Bulgaria	5	5	7	23	11	9	2	2	10
26	France	2	23	16	1	18	13		7	4