Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest

Hungary has been represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times since making its debut in 1994. Hungary attempted to participate in 1993 but failed to qualify from Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, a special qualifying competition set up for seven former Eastern Bloc countries. The current Hungarian participating broadcaster in the contest is Médiaszolgáltatás-támogató és Vagyonkezelő Alap (MTVA).

Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
Participating broadcaster	Médiaszolgáltatás-támogató és Vagyonkezelő Alap (MTVA; 2011–2019) Formerly Magyar Televízió (MTV; 1993–2009)
Participation summary
Appearances	17 (14 finals)
First appearance	1994
Last appearance	2019
Highest placement	4th: 1994
Participation history 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 – 2025
Related articles
A Dal
External links
Hungary's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Hungary in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Hungary's first contest in 1994 remains its most successful, with "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?" performed by Friderika Bayer finishing in fourth place. The country's only other top five result is a fifth-place finish with "Running" by András Kállay-Saunders in 2014. Other top ten results are "Unsubstantial Blues" by Magdi Rúzsa finishing ninth in 2007, "Kedvesem" by ByeAlex tenth in 2013, and "Origo" by Joci Pápai eighth in 2017, giving Hungary a total of five top ten placements.

History

Magyar Televízió (MTV) was a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1 January 1993, thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest since then. It participated in the contest representing Hungary since its 39th edition in 1994. Since 2011, after a restructuring that led to the incorporation of MTV into the current Médiaszolgáltatás-támogató és Vagyonkezelő Alap (MTVA), it is the latter who has participated representing Hungary. Before becoming a member of the EBU, earlier contests had often been broadcast on MTV.

Hungary's first entry in the Eurovision Song Contest would have been "Árva reggel", performed by Andrea Szulák, in 1993, but a qualification round was held for former Eastern Bloc countries, and the song did not manage to qualify to the final. The first official Hungarian participation was with "Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?", performed by Friderika Bayer, in 1994. Hungary received the maximum score of 12 points from the first three countries to vote. However, as the competition progressed, it attracted fewer votes and ultimately finished in fourth place.

The 1995 entry was not as successful, garnering only 3 points, narrowly beating last-place Germany. In 1996 Hungary again failed to qualify when "Fortuna", performed by Gjon Delhusa did not qualify from the pre-qualification round.

Hungary withdrew after the 1998 contest. It had planned to return in 2004,^[1] but ultimately did not take part in the contest. They eventually returned in 2005, where they finished in 12th place in the final with "Forogj, világ!", performed by NOX. However, Hungary withdrew again in 2006, returning in 2007 with "Unsubstantial Blues", the first Hungarian entry in English, performed by Magdi Rúzsa, the winner of the 3rd season of the Hungarian talent show Megasztár. The song came 9th in Helsinki, receiving 128 points in the final.

After coming last in the semi-final in the 2008 contest, MTV confirmed Hungary's participation at the 2009 contest in Moscow. After its original choice was revealed to have been released before 1 October 2008, breaking contest rules, it was decided that "Dance with Me", performed by Zoltán Ádok, would be Hungary's entry, after MTV's second choice to represent Hungary declined.^[2][3] The song placed 15th in the second semi-final, failing to qualify for the grand final for the second time since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004.

In October 2009, MTV confirmed that it would not participate in the 2010 contest due to financial limitations in the company which would prevent it from sending an entry.^[4] Duna Televízió broadcast the event live and applied for EBU membership to send a representative to Düsseldorf in 2011. However, during the EBU's 65th conference, Duna's bid to become an active member was rejected. In December 2010, it was confirmed that MTVA had agreed to return to the 2011 edition.^[5] MTVA internally selected the song "What About My Dreams?", performed by Kati Wolf. The song placed 7th in the first semi-final with 72 points and was the first entry representing Hungary to qualify for the final since 2007. In the final, the song placed 22nd with 53 points.

In 2012, MTVA organised a national final, A Dal, to select the Hungarian entry for the contest in Baku. The song "Sound of Our Hearts", performed by Compact Disco, was selected. The song placed 10th in the first semi-final with 52 points, and 24th in the final with 19 points. A Dal had been used as the Hungarian selection process annually until 2019.

In 2013, Hungary reached the top 10, when the song "Kedvesem (Zoohacker Remix)", performed by ByeAlex, placed 10th with 84 points. Hungary reached the top five in 2014, when the song "Running", performed by András Kállay-Saunders, placed fifth with 143 points, achieving the best result for Hungary in the contest since its 1994 debut.

Hungary made it to the top ten once again in 2017, when the song "Origo", performed by Joci Pápai, placed 8th with 200 points, achieving their best result in three years. Pápai represented Hungary again in 2019 with the song "Az én apám", but failed to qualify for the final, marking Hungary's first non-qualification since 2009.

Hungary did not appear on the final list of participants for the later-cancelled 2020 contest; it has been absent from the contest since.^[6][7][8] MTVA stated that it would continue to organise A Dal to "support the valuable productions created by the talents of Hungarian pop music directly" instead of participating in the contest.^[9] The withdrawal came during a rise of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment among the leadership of Hungary and MTVA; while no official reason for the withdrawal was given by the broadcaster, an inside source speaking with the website Index.hu speculated that the contest was considered "too gay" for MTVA to participate.^[10]

Participation overview

Table key

2	Second place
3	Third place
◁	Last place
X	Entry selected but did not compete

Year	Artist	Song	Language	Final	Points	Semi	Points
1993	Andrea Szulák	"Árva reggel"	Hungarian	Failed to qualify[a] X		6	44
1994	Friderika	"Kinek mondjam el vétkeimet?"	Hungarian	4	122	No semi-finals
1995	Csaba Szigeti	"Új név egy régi ház falán"	Hungarian	22	3
1996	Gjon Delhusa	"Fortuna"	Hungarian	Failed to qualify[b] X		23	26
1997	V.I.P.	"Miért kell, hogy elmenj?"	Hungarian	12	39	No semi-finals
1998	Charlie	"A holnap már nem lesz szomorú"	Hungarian	23	4
2005	Nox	"Forogj, világ!"	Hungarian	12	97	5	167
2007	Magdi Rúzsa	"Unsubstantial Blues"	English	9	128	2	224
2008	Csézy	"Candlelight"	English, Hungarian	Failed to qualify		19 ◁	6
2009	Zoli Ádok	"Dance with Me"	English			15	16
2011	Kati Wolf	"What About My Dreams?"	English, Hungarian	22	53	7	72
2012	Compact Disco	"Sound of Our Hearts"	English	24	19	10	52
2013	ByeAlex	"Kedvesem" (Zoohacker Remix)	Hungarian	10	84	8	66
2014	András Kállay-Saunders	"Running"	English	5	143	3	127
2015	Boggie	"Wars for Nothing"	English	20	19	8	67
2016	Freddie	"Pioneer"	English	19	108	4	197
2017	Joci Pápai	"Origo"	Hungarian	8	200	2	231
2018	AWS	"Viszlát nyár"	Hungarian	21	93	10	111
2019	Joci Pápai	"Az én apám"	Hungarian	Failed to qualify		12	97

Awards

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Year	Category	Song	Composer(s) lyrics (l) / music (m)	Performer	Final	Points	Host city	Ref.
2007	Composer Award	"Unsubstantial Blues"	Magdi Rúzsa (m) and Imre Mózsik (l)	Magdi Rúzsa	9	128	Helsinki	[11]

Winner by OGAE members

Further information: OGAE

Year	Song	Performer	Place	Points	Host city	Ref.
2011	"What About My Dreams?"	Kati Wolf	22	53	Düsseldorf	[12]

Barbara Dex Award

Further information: Barbara Dex Award

Year	Performer	Host city	Ref.
2009	Zoli Ádok	Moscow	[13]

Related involvement

Conductors

Their first entry was conducted by Péter Wolf

Heads of delegation

Each participating broadcaster in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the performers, songwriters, composers, and backing vocalists, among others.^[14]

Year	Head of delegation	Ref.
2008–2016	Szilvia Püspök
2017–2019	Lőrinc Bubnó

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Channel	Commentator(s)	Spokesperson	Ref.
1965	MTV	Unknown	Did not participate	[15]
1966				[16]
1967				[17]
1968				[18]
1969				[19]
1970				[20]
1971				[21]
1972				[22]
1973				[23]
1974	MTV1			[24]
1975				[25]
1976	Petőfi Rádió			[26]
1977	MTV2			[27]
1978				[28]
1979–1980	No broadcast
1981	MTV2	András Sugár [hu]		[29]
1982	MTV1	Unknown		[30]
1983–1985	No broadcast
1986	MTV1	Unknown		[31]
1987	MTV2	István Vágó		[32]
1988				[33]
1989				[34]
1990				[35]
1991	MTV1			[36]
1992				[37]
1993				[38]
1994	MTV2		Iván Bradányi [hu]	[39][40]
1995			Katalin Bogyay	[41][42]
1996			Did not participate	[43]
1997	MTV1		Györgyi Albert	[44]
1998		Gábor Gundel Takács [hu]	Barna Héder [hu]	[45][46][47]
1999–2004	No broadcast		Did not participate
2005	m1	Zsuzsa Demcsák [hr], András Fáber and Dávid Szántó	Zsuzsa Demcsák	[48][49][50]
2006	No broadcast		Did not participate
2007	m1	Gábor Gundel Takács	Éva Novodomszky	[51][52][53]
2008	m1 (SF2, Final)			[54][55][56]
2009	m1			[57][58][59][60][46]
2010	Duna TV	Zsolt Jeszenszky	Did not participate	[61]
2011	m1	Gábor Gundel Takács	Éva Novodomszky	[62][63]
2012				[64]
2013				[65]
2014				[66][67]
2015	Duna		Csilla Tatár	[68][69]
2016				[70]
2017		Krisztina Rátonyi and Freddie		[71]
2018			Bence Forró	[72]
2019				[73]
2020–2025	No broadcast		Did not participate	[74]

Photo gallery

• 
  Magdi Rúzsa in Helsinki (2007)
• 
  Csézy in Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Kati Wolf in Düsseldorf (2011)
• 
  ByeAlex in Malmö (2013)
• 
  András Kállay-Saunders in Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Boggie in Vienna (2015)
• 
  Freddie in Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Joci Pápai in Kyiv (2017)
• 
  AWS in Lisbon (2018)
• 
  Joci Pápai in Tel Aviv (2019)