Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008

Salvemos Eurovisión was the national final organised by TVE that took place on 8 March 2008 at the Estudios Buñuel in Madrid, hosted by Italian actress and singer Raffaella Carrà.[2][3] The show was broadcast on La 1 and TVE International Europe. Ten artists and songs competed with the winner being decided upon through public televoting.

A submission period was open from 22 January until 13 February 2008 for artists to upload their entries through the Salvemos Eurovisión MySpace platform.[4] At the conclusion of the submission period, 536 entries were uploaded. An Internet vote took place on the platform and Internet users had between 16 February and 25 February 2008 to distribute five votes to their favourite entries each day. The five entries with the most votes qualified to the national final, which were announced on 26 February 2008.[5] A five-member evaluation committee consisting of two members representing TVE's management, a member from the digital branch of TVE, a member from MySpace Spain, and an independent music professional, evaluated the remaining entries and selected five additional entries for the national final, which were announced on 28 February 2008.[6][7]

On 28 February 2008, Null System was disqualified from the national final due to the song having been commercially released before 1 October 2007, breaking competition rules. Lorena C was later selected by the evaluation committee as the replacement act.[8]

The televised final took place on 8 March 2008. The winner, "Baila el Chiki-chiki" performed by comedic act Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, was selected by a public televote through the combination of votes cast before the final (1/5) and votes cast during the final (4/5).[9] Prior to the final, the public was able to vote in advance from 4 March 2008 to 8 March 2008.

During the show an in-studio jury commented on the performances. The five members of the in-studio jury were:

• José Luis Uribarri – Television presenter and director, commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest for Spain
• Bibiana Fernández – Actress
• Mauro Canut – Musician, editor and deputy director at the digital branch of TVE
• Boris Izaguirre – Television personality
• Rosa López – Singer, represented Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002

In addition to the performances by the competing artists, guest performers included La Pajarraca, Raffaella Carrà and Muchachada Nui.[10]

TVE decided to make the selection process "more democratic" so they created the MySpace platform where the general public could vote for any of the artists interested in participating, with the idea of discovering new talents. However, the Internet voting process was accused of being easily distorted, and the participation of comedic acts like Rodolfo Chikilicuatre, the eventual winner, who was promoted by a late night TV show, was also disputed. Rodolfo Chikilicuatre is a fictional character played by David Fernández, a comedian who collaborates on the late night TV show Buenafuente, hosted by popular comedian Andreu Buenafuente on private channel laSexta, where his entry was repeatedly promoted. He submitted the song "Baila el Chiki-chiki", a parody of reggaeton music and has a joke reference to the world-famous ¿Por qué no te callas? incident. Some Eurovision fans accused this song of containing political content, which is not allowed in the Eurovision contest. An example of the song's political content would be "Lo baila Rajoy, lo baila Hugo Chávez, lo baila Zapatero, mi amor ya tú sabes." ("Rajoy dances it, Hugo Chávez dances it, Zapatero dances it; my love, you already know it"). Supporters of the song claimed that this is only a mention of Spanish political figures, and does not constitute political content. In any case, the most controversial lines were changed to fit the rules after the Spanish national final.[11]

During the Internet round, "Baila el Chiki-chiki" received the most votes until "La bicicletera" performed by El Gato rocketed from barely 300 votes to 80,000 in two days. However the song got most of its votes deleted by TVE after allegedly discovering that they were fraudulent.[12][13] Users of Internet forums such as Mediavida.com claimed they first supported Chikilicuatre fraudulently until Andreu Buenafuente himself refused to recognize their help, so, in protest, they decided to rise El Gato to the first places of the competition. TVE eliminated most of El Gato's votes but Chikilicuatre's votes remained untouched.