Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Eurovíziós Dalverseny 2008: Magyarországi döntő was the Hungarian national selection which selected the Hungarian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. Fifteen entries competed in the competition, held on 8 February 2008 at Pólus Center's Fortuna Stúdió in Budapest, hosted by Éva Novodomszky and Levente Harsányi.

Artists and composers were able to submit their applications and entries for the competition between 10 November 2007 and 12 December 2007. Competing artists were required to either hold Hungarian citizenship, and only those that had a valid contract with a record company/professional management and that had either released an album were eligible to compete.[1] In addition, artists were required to submit both English and Hungarian versions of their entries. After the submission deadline had passed, 30 entries were received by the broadcaster.

A four-member preselection jury selected fifteen entries for the competition. The jury consisted of Miklós Malek, László Benko, Eszter Horgas and Balázs Lévai. The competing artists were announced on 14 January 2008 and the competing songs were released on 31 January 2008.[2][3]

The final took place on 8 February 2008. The winner was selected by a 50/50 combination of votes from a jury panel and a public vote consisting of votes submitted through telephone and SMS voting. Each juror assigned scores to each entry ranging from 1 (lowest score) to 10 (highest score) immediately after the artist(s) conclude their performance and the sum of all the jury scores created an overall ranking from which points from 1 (lowest) to 15 (highest) were distributed. The overall ranking of the entries from the public was also assigned scores from 1 to 15. The summation of the judges scores and the public vote determined the winner of the competition, "Szívverés" performed by Csézy. Adrien Szekeres and Csézy were both tied with 29 points but since Csézy received the most votes from the public she was declared the winner.[4]

Following Csézy's win at the national selection, the English version of "Szívverés", titled "Candlelight", was released on 11 February 2008.[5]

• Commentators - Gábor Gundel Takács[6]
• Spokespersons - Éva Novodomszky[6]