Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009


Armenia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, as confirmed by Armenian broadcaster Armenian Public Television. Inga and Anush Arshakyan won the National final with their song "Jan Jan" and represented Armenia in the Eurovision 2009.

Before Eurovision

Possible artists

Popular male artist Aramé had expressed an interest in representing Armenia.
The Azeria-Press Agency had claimed that System of a Down would be the artists for the Armenian entry. A member of the Turkish Parliament from the Republican People’s Party, Akif Ekici, commented that the group was going to perform a song about Armenian genocide. He went on to say their song “Holy Mountains” offended the Turkish people, and asked the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, what action could have been taken to stop the group participating in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.

National final

The Armenian broadcaster returned to a national final format to select the fourth Armenian entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. This was the second time the Armenian entry was selected through a public contest.
The final took place on 14 February 2009 at the Sport and Concert Complex in Yerevan, hosted by Gohar Gasparyan and Avet Barseghyan. Twenty-one songs competed with the winner being decided upon by a 50/50 combination of the votes from a jury and a public televote. "Jan Jan" performed by Inga & Anush Arshakyanner were the landslide winners, receiving top marks from both the jury and the televote. "My Heart, My Soul" performed by Mher placed second while "Fly" performed by Dorians placed third.

Controversy

press agencies claimed that, the song "Jan Jan" fully copying the famous Azerbaijanian composer Tofig Guliyev's dance song "Nakhchivani", which was composed more than 30 years ago. A quick listen however, reveals they barely resemble one another, sharing perhaps only slight features of regional rhythms and instrumentation.

At Eurovision

Since Armenia is not one of the "Big Four" and was not the host of the 2009 contest, it had to compete in one of the two semi-finals.
Armenia qualified from the first semi final placing 5th and scoring 99 and eventually finished in 10th place in the final with 92 points. Despite it being the country's worst finish in the Eurovision at the time, it gave them the country's fourth successive top ten finish.

Split results

Semi-final 1

Final

12 points10 points8 points7 points6 points

  • 5 points4 points3 points2 points1 point