Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003

Eurovision Song Contest 2003
Participating broadcaster	Televisión Española (TVE)
Country	Spain
National selection
Selection process	Operación Triunfo 2002
Selection date(s)	17 February 2003
Selected artist(s)	Beth
Selected song	"Dime"
Selected songwriter(s)	Jesús María Pérez Amaya Martínez
Finals performance
Final result	8th, 81 points
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2002 • 2003 • 2004►

Spain was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with the song "Dime" composed by Jesús María Pérez, with lyrics by Amaya Martínez, and performed by Beth. The Spanish participating broadcaster, Televisión Española (TVE), selected its entry through the second series of the reality television music competition Operación Triunfo. Three artists and songs ultimately qualified to compete in the Eurovision selection show of the competition where a public televote exclusively selected "Dime" performed by Beth as the winner, receiving 45% of the votes.

As a member of the "Big Four", Spain automatically qualified to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. Performing in position 12, Spain placed eighth out of the 26 participating countries with 81 points.

Prior to the 2003 contest, Televisión Española (TVE) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Spain forty-two times since its first entry in 1961.^[1] It has won the contest on two occasions: in 1968 with the song "La, la, la" performed by Massiel and in 1969 with the song "Vivo cantando" performed by Salomé, the latter having won in a four-way tie with France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It has also finished second four times, with "En un mundo nuevo" by Karina in 1971, "Eres tú" by Mocedades in 1973, "Su canción" by Betty Missiego in 1979, and "Vuelve conmigo" by Anabel Conde in 1995. In 2002, it placed seventh with the song "Europe's Living a Celebration" performed by Rosa.

As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, TVE organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. In 2002, TVE used the reality television singing competition Operación Triunfo (the Spanish version of Star Academy) to select both the artist and song that would represent Spain. The procedure was continued in order to select their 2003 entry.^[2]

The Spanish entry for the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest was selected through Operación Triunfo, a Spanish reality television music competition consisting of training seventeen contestants in a boarding academy in order to find new singing talent.^[3] The second series, also known as Operación Triunfo 2002, took place from 7 October 2002 to 24 February 2003 at the Mediapark Studios in Sant Just Desvern (Barcelona), hosted by Carlos Lozano. The competition was broadcast on La Primera and TVE Internacional. The top three contestants competed in the Eurovision selection show, Gala Eurovisión, which consisted of two shows on 10 and 17 February 2003. Each contestant performed three candidate songs, selected by an evaluation committee consisting of representatives of TVE, Gestmusic and Vale Music from more than 200 submitted songs, and the winner was decided exclusively through a public televote.^[4] The competing songs and the allocations were announced on 3 February 2003.^[5]

  Contestant qualified to "Gala Eurovisión"

The song selection round of Gala Eurovisión took place on 10 February 2003 and consisted of two rounds of voting. In the first round, an in-studio jury eliminated one song per contestant. The five members of the in-studio jury were Pilar Tabares (music director of TVE), Sergio Dalma (singer, represented Spain in the 1991 contest), José Luis Uribarri (television presenter and director, commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest for Spain), Joaquín Hurtado (program coordinator at Cadena Dial) and Rafael Fernández (webmaster of eurofestival.net).^[6] In the second round, a public televote eliminated an additional song per contestant.^[7] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the guest performer was jury member Sergio Dalma.^[8]

The final of Gala Eurovisión took place on 17 February 2003. The winner, "Dime" performed by Beth, was selected exclusively through a public televote which ran between 10 and 17 February 2003.^[7][9] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, guest performers included two of the Operación Triunfo 2002 finalists Hugo and Miguel Nández.^[10]

As a member of the "Big Four", Spain automatically qualified to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 on 24 May 2003. During the allocation draw on 29 November 2002, Spain was drawn to perform in position 12, following the entry from Russia and before the entry from Israel. At the conclusion of the final, Spain placed eighth in the final, scoring 81 points.^[11]

In Spain, the show was broadcast on La Primera with commentary by José Luis Uribarri.^[12][13] TVE appointed Anne Igartiburu as its spokesperson to announce the Spanish televote during the final.

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Spain and awarded by Spain in the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Belgium in the contest.

Points awarded to Spain[14] Score Country 12 points  Israel  Portugal 10 points  Belgium 8 points 7 points  Croatia 6 points  Cyprus  Iceland  Russia 5 points  Greece  Netherlands  Romania 4 points  Sweden 3 points 2 points  Turkey 1 point  Slovenia

Points awarded by Spain[14] Score Country 12 points  Belgium 10 points  Romania 8 points  Austria 7 points  Sweden 6 points  Russia 5 points  Poland 4 points  Germany 3 points  Turkey 2 points  Portugal 1 point  Israel