Poland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with the song „I Don’t Wanna Leave“ written by Alex Geringos and Bernd Klimpel. The song was performed by Lidia Kopania. The Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) organised the national final Piosenka dla Europy 2009 in order to select the Polish entry for the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia. The national final took place on 14 February 2009 and featured ten entries. „I Don’t Wanna Leave“ performed by Lidia Kopania was selected as the winner after gaining the most points following the combination of votes from a four-member jury panel and a public vote.

Poland was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 14 May 2009. Performing in position 5, „I Don’t Wanna Leave“ was not announced among the ten qualifying entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Poland placed twelfth out of the 19 participating countries in the semi-final with 43 points.

Piosenka dla Europy 2009

Piosenka dla Europy 2009 was the national final organised by TVP in order to select the Polish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2009. The show took place on 14 February 2009 at the TVP Headquarters in Warsaw, hosted by Radosław Brzózka and Paulina Chylewska.[7] A combination of public televoting and jury voting selected the winner. The show was broadcast on TVP1, TVP HD and TVP Polonia as well as streamed online at the broadcaster’s website tvp.pl. The national final was watched by 3.8 million viewers in Poland with a market share of 28%.

Competing entries

TVP opened a submission period for interested artists and songwriters to submit their entries between 28 November 2008 and 16 January 2009. Only artists that had either released an album or single with national radio airplays, had competed in at least one professional song contest or music festival at a national level, or had a valid contract with a record company or a professional concert agency were eligible to compete. The broadcaster received 122 submissions at the closing of the deadline. An eight-member selection committee selected twelve entries from the received submissions to compete in the national final. The selection committee consisted of Zuzanna Łapicka (Head of Entertainment of TVP1), Paweł Sztompke (journalist, music critic and editorial director of music at Polish Radio), Piotr Baron (music journalist and presenter at Polish Radio), Tomasz Miara (presenter at Radio ZET), Dariusz Maciborek (music journalist at Radio RMF FM), Tomasz Deszczyński (President of OGAE Poland), Malgorzata Kosturkiewicz (concert director, screenwriter and producer) and Piotr Klatt (musician, songwriter, journalist and music producer at TVP and artistic director of the Opole Festival). The selected entries were announced on 23 January 2009. On 23 and 28 January, „Amazing“, written by Jud Friedman and Allan Rich and to have been performed by Katarzyna Skrzynecka, and „Kardamon i pieprz“, written by Natalia Grosiak and to have been performed by Mikromusic, were disqualified from the national final as the song had been performed in October 2007 during Taniec z Gwiazdami, the Polish version of Dancing with the Stars. The competing artists were required to submit a promotional video for their song to TVP by 9 February 2009.

Final

The televised final took place on 14 February 2009. Ten entries competed and the winner, „I Don’t Wanna Leave“ performed by Lidia Kopania, was determined by a 50/50 combination of votes from a four-member professional jury and a public vote. The jury consisted of Robert Chojnacki (composer), Krzysztof Kasowski (singer), Roman Rogowiecki (deputy entertainment director of TVP1) and Marta Turska (member of OGAE Poland). In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 1994 Polish Eurovision entrant Edyta Górniak and 1999 Polish Eurovision entrant Mietek Szcześniak performed as the interval acts.

Final – 14 February 2009

Draw	Artist	Song	Songwriter(s)	Jury	Televote	Total	Place
1	Stachursky	„I nie mów nic“	Daniel Maczura, Jacek Laszczok	1	5	6	9
2	Det Betales	„Jacqueline“	Leif Melander, Peter Nord, Knut Oyvind Hagen	3	1	4	10
3	Man Meadow	„Love Is Gonna Get You“	Thomas G:son, Andreas Rickstrand	2	7	9	6
4	Dali	„Everyday“	Viktar Rudenka, Aliaksandar Liutych, Igor Znyk	6	2	8	7
5	Ira	„Dobry czas“	Artur Gadowski, Wojciech Byrski	7	4	11	5
6	Artur Chamski	„Kilka słów“	Paweł Rurak Sokal, Andrzej Ignatowski	5	8	13	4
7	Marco Bocchino and Aleksandra Szwed	„All My Life“	Marco Bocchino	8	10	18	2
8	Tigrita Project	„Mon chocolat“	Klaudia Baszniak Kozłowska	4	3	7	8
9	Renton	„I’m Not Sure“	Marek Karwowski, Paweł Szupiluk, Mariusz Gajewski, Łukasz Różycki	12	6	18	2
10	Lidia Kopania	„I Don’t Wanna Leave“	Alex Geringos, Bernd Klimpel	10	12	22	1

Gallery

Source: esckaz