Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012

On 23 August 2011, NTU confirmed its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.[3] The Ukrainian national final took place at the NTU studios in Kiev and consisted of a final on 18 February 2012. The competition was hosted by Timur Myroshnychenko and Tetyana Terekhova.

The selection of the competing entries for the national final and ultimately the Ukrainian Eurovision entry took place over two stages. In the first stage, artists and songwriters had the opportunity to apply for the competition by attending a scheduled audition. Twenty acts were selected and announced on 25 November 2011. An additional two wildcards were awarded: one to the winner of Inter Channel show Number 1 and one from an online wildcard selection.[4] The second stage was the televised final, which took place on 18 February 2012 and featured the twenty-one acts vying to represent Ukraine in Baku. The winner was selected via the 50/50 combination of votes from a public SMS vote and an expert jury. Each member of the jury assigned scores to each entry ranging from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) and the ranking was converted to scores from 1 (lowest) to 21 (highest). In the event of a tie, the tie was decided in favour of the entry that received more higher scores from the jury members. Viewers participating in the public SMS vote during the show had the opportunity to submit a single vote per phone number for the participating entries and the ranking was also converted to scores from 1 to 21.[5] The entry that had the highest number of points following the combination of these scores was declared the winner.

Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries by attending an audition on 25 November 2011. A four-member selection panel consisting of Vlad Bahinskyj (musical producer at NTU), Volodymyr Kozlov (RU Music television channel director), Victoria Romanova (international relations department at NTU) and Ivo Bobul (singer) reviewed the received submissions and selected twenty entries to compete in the national final. Nerealnye (The Incredibles), winner of Number 1, was selected as a direct wildcard qualifier for the national final. An additional competing act was selected from an online wildcard selection.[6] Four of the non-qualifying entries from the auditions entered the online vote on the say.tv platform, from which the winner, "Dance" performed by Max Barskih, was selected to compete in the national final.[7] On 11 February 2012, the running order draw took place during the show Shuster Live, broadcast on the Ukraina channel. On 16 February 2012, Matias withdrew his song "I Will Fight to the End" from the national final due to a conflict of interest with his manager, Vlad Bahinskyj, who was a member of the selection panel during the auditions.[8]

The final took place on 18 February 2012. The winner, "Be My Guest" performed by Gaitana, was selected through the combination of votes from a public SMS vote and an expert jury.[2] 16,825 votes were registered by the SMS vote during the show. The jury panel consisted of Egor Benkendorf, Walid Arfush, Yurij Rybchunskyj, Semyon Horov, Mariya Manyuk, Rudolf Kirnos and Alyona Mozgova.[2]

• In the Semi-final Ukraine came 8th with 64 points: the public awarded Ukraine 17th place with 24 points and the jury awarded 3rd place with 109 points.[10]
• In the Final Ukraine came 15th with 65 points: the public awarded Ukraine 20th place with 37 points and the jury awarded 7th place with 125 points.[10]