Cyprus was represented at the

Eurovision Song Contest 1996 The Eurovision Song Contest 1996 was the 41st edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held on 18 May 1996 at the in Oslo, Norway. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (NRK) and presented by Ingvild Bryn and ...

with the song "" , composed by Andreas Giorgallis, with lyrics by Rodoula Papalambrianou, and performed by Constantinos. The Cypriot participating broadcaster, the

Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (; ), or CyBC (; ), is Cyprus' public broadcasting service. It transmits island-wide on four radio and two domestic television channels, and uses one satellite channel for the Cypriot diaspora. It also transmits o ...

(CyBC), selected its entry through a national final.

Before Eurovision

Competing entries

The

(CyBC) opened a submission period for Cypriot artists and composers to submit songs until 12 January 1996. The deadline was later postponed to 21 January 1996. By the end of the submission period, 43 entries had been submitted. On 4 February 1996, in radio room one of the CyBC studios, an 8-member jury listened to the received submissions and chose eight songs to compete in the national final.

Final

The final was broadcast live at 21:10 (

EET "Eet" is a song from Regina Spektor's fifth studio album, '' Far''. It was released as the album's second official single in October 2009. In Europe it was released as a digital download on November 27, 2009. Music video A viral music video dir ...

) on

RIK 1 RIK 1 (Greek: ΡΙΚ 1) is a Cypriot television channel owned and operated by Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation. It was launched in 1957. History The channel opened in 1957 as CBS TV, in 1959, the corporation changed its name to CyBC, RIK in Gree ...

on 5 March 1996 in a show titled (). The contest was held at the Monte Caputo Nightclub in

Limassol Limassol, also known as Lemesos, is a city on the southern coast of Cyprus and capital of the Limassol district. Limassol is the second-largest urban area in Cyprus after Nicosia, with an urban population of 195,139 and a district population o ...

, and was hosted by Marina Maleni. The winner was decided by a 20-member jury who each gave out 10 points to their favourite song, 8 to their second favourite, and 6 through to 1 points for their third to eighth placing songs.

At Eurovision

In 1996, for the only time in Eurovision history, an audio-only pre-qualifying round of the 29 songs entered (excluding hosts who were exempt) was held in March in order for the seven lowest-scoring songs to be eliminated before the final. Cyprus received 42 points, placing joint 15th and thus qualifying for the final in Oslo. On the night of the final,

Constantinos Christoforou Constantinos Christophorou (Κωνσταντίνος Χριστοφόρου, born in Limassol, Cyprus on 25 April 1977) is a Greek-Cypriot singer. He represented Cyprus in Eurovision Song Contest as a solo singer with " Mono Yia Mas" (1996) a ...

(performing mononymously as Constantinos) performed fifth in the running order, following and preceding . At the closing of the voting, "" had received 72 points, placing Cyprus 9th out of 23 competing countries. The Cypriot jury awarded its 12 points to Portugal.

Voting

Qualifying round

Final

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1996

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster submits an origina ...