Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Artists and composers were able to submit their entries between 14 January 2009 and 2 February 2009.[2] After the submission deadline had passed, 105 entries were received by the broadcaster. A four-member jury reviewed all submissions and the selected entry was announced on 3 February 2009.[3][4] The jury consisted of Andrea Szulák (represented Hungary in the 1993 Contest), Laszlo Szuts (representative of Mahasz), Levente Harsányi (television presenter) and Gabor Takács (television presenter). Márk Zentai was initially announced as the Hungarian entrant at the 2009 contest with the song "If You Wanna Party", however Zentai shortly withdrew from the contest as the song was released in 2004 as the Swedish Big Brother theme song, titled "We Became Friends".[5] Therefore, the jury reviewed the remaining submissions and selected the replacement entry.[6] On 4 February 2009, MTV announced "Magányos csónak" by actress Kátya Tompos as the replacement.[7][8] However on 10 February 2009, Tompos also withdrew from the contest as she wanted to focus on her theatre career and that she had no time to prepare her participation in Eurovision properly, due to her having to take part in 8 plays of 3 different theatres. Therefore, the jury had to select a second replacement entry from the remaining 103 submissions.[9] On 23 February 2009, MTV announced "Dance With Me" by Zoli Ádok as the final replacement entry after shortlisting three songs to be sure one of them will not withdraw and completely meet the requirements.

Before the selection of Kátya Tompos, the Alliance of Hungarian Popular Music Composers and Songwriters protested that they did not feel as if the jury had long enough to make a correct decision, and were dissatisfied with the internal selection instead of a national final where the public could vote for the winner. Other claims were made as well, such as that the songwriters should be Hungarian and that the jury was not professional.[10] MTV, however, stood by their decision of the internal selection, as well as revealing that the jury of television and music industry professionals chose the song all day long on 3 February 2009, and that they were satisfied with the jury's decision.[10] [11]