Kvalifikacija za Millstreet was a televised song contest held as a qualifying round for the Eurovision Song Contest 1993. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO), the contest was held on 3 April 1993 in Studio 1 of Televizija Slovenija in Ljubljana, Slovenia and presented by the Slovenian television presenter Tajda Lekše. The fall of communist regimes in Europe and the formation of new countries following the collapse of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to an increased interest in Eurovision Song Contest participation. Kvalifikacija za Millstreet was organised as a one-off event to reduce the number of countries allowed to participate in the 1993 event, with a relegation system introduced for future editions allowing new and returning countries direct access to the contest to replace the lowest-scoring countries from the previous year's event. Entries representing seven countries, none of which had previously competed in the Eurovision Song Contest, participated in the event, with three countries being selected to progress to the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest, held on 15 May in Millstreet, Ireland. One juror from each of the competing countries voted on the competing entries, with, and chosen to progress to the contest in Millstreet. ,, and , the countries which failed to progress through Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, subsequently made their contest debuts in.

Background

The Eurovision Song Contest is an internationally televised songwriting competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed by a chosen artist, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine a winner. Originally held in with seven competing countries, the contest quickly began to grow as more countries became interested in participating, and by the early 1990s entries from over 20 countries were regularly featured in each year's event. By 1992, an increasing number of countries had begun expressing an interest in participating in the contest for the first time. This was a result of revolutions leading to the fall of communist regimes in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the formation of new countries due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. To accommodate this new interest, the EBU expanded the maximum number of participating countries for the to twenty-five, with entries from three new countries joining twenty-two of the twenty-three countries which had participated in the. was unable to participate after its EBU member broadcaster Jugoslovenska radio-televizija (JRT) was disbanded in 1992 and its successor organisations Radio-televizija Srbije (RTS) and Radio-televizija Crne Gore (RTCG) were barred from joining the union due to sanctions against the country as part of the Yugoslav Wars. In order to determine which countries would progress to the contest proper, a preselection round was held for the first time in the contest's history, with the top three countries in this round progressing to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 held in Millstreet, Ireland. This contest, Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia and was produced by the Slovenian public broadcaster Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTVSLO). Originally planned to be held in Portorož, the event was ultimately held in Studio 1 of Televizija Slovenija, with Edo Brzin serving as executive producer, Peter Juratovec serving as director and Jože Spacal serving as designer. Petar Ugrin and Mojmir Sepe served as joint musical directors and were responsible for leading the RTVSLO Revue Orchestra during the event; a separate musical director could be nominated by each country to conduct the orchestra during their performance.

Participating countries

Initially broadcasters in as many as fourteen countries registered their interest in competing in the Eurovision Song Contest's first preselection event, including broadcasters in, the , , , and. By February 1993, however, the number of competing countries had dropped to six, comprising planned entries from, , , , and. Subsequently Bulgaria's planned entry did not materialise, however and joined the contest, resulting in seven countries competing in total for the three spots available in Millstreet.

Contest overview

Kvalifikacija za Millstreet took place on 3 April 1993 and was presented by Tajda Lekše. The three countries that received the most votes and progressed to the Eurovision Song Contest 1993 were Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. As former constituent republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, all three countries had previously been represented in the Eurovision Song Contest through entries sent by. Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, which failed to progress through Kvalifikacija za Millstreet, made their contest debuts following the introduction of a relegation system which resulted in the lowest-scoring countries from the 1993 contest being replaced by new countries in the 1994 event.

Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. As telephone communications could not be relied upon to reach juries based in the competing countries, one juror from each country was sent to Slovenia in order to provide votes for their respective country. These jurors were located in the same venue as the performers and announced their votes live and on camera during the voting segment. Each juror awarded twelve points to their favourite entry, followed by ten points to their second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to five for the remaining songs, excluding the entry from their own country. The respective jurors from each country and the detailed breakdown of the points awarded is listed in the tables below.

Broadcasts

The contest was broadcast via the EBU's Eurovision network, with EBU member broadcasters able to relay the contest via their broadcast channels. Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. Broadcasters in all competing countries, as well as broadcasters in, , , and , relayed the event either live or delayed. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.