Romania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 with the song "Zaleilah" written by Elena Ionescu, Costi Ioniță and Omar Secada. The song was performed by the band Mandinga. The Romanian broadcaster Televiziunea Română (TVR) organised the national final Selecția Națională 2012 in order to select the Romanian entry for the 2012 contest in Baku, Azerbaijan. Fifteen entries were selected to compete in the national final on 10 March 2012 where "Zaleilah" performed by Mandinga was selected as the winner after scoring top marks from a nine-member jury panel and a public televote.
Romania was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 22 May 2012. Performing during the show in position 6, "Zaleilah" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 26 May. It was later revealed that Romania placed third out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 120 points. In the final, Romania performed in position 14 and placed twelfth out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 71 points.
Background
Prior to the 2012 contest, Romania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 13 times since its first entry in 1994. To this point, its highest placing in the contest has been third place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 2005 with the song "Let Me Try" performed by Luminița Anghel and Sistem, and in 2010 with the song "Playing with Fire" performed by Paula Seling and Ovi. To this point, Romania has qualified to the final on every occasion since the introduction of semi-finals to the format of the contest in 2004. In 2011, "Change" by Hotel FM placed 17th in the final.
The Romanian national broadcaster, Televiziunea Română (TVR), broadcasts the event within Romania and organizes the selection process for the nation's entry. TVR has consistently selected the Romanian Eurovision entry through national finals that feature a competition among several artists and songs. Despite rumours that TVR would not enter the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest due the lack of foundation, the broadcaster confirmed their intentions to participate on 13 January 2012 and pressured the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to lower the entry fee, stating that "participation was only possible if 40% of all the costs that may occur could be funded through sponsorship". TVR had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision for Romania, a procedure which the broadcaster opted for once again to select their 2012 entry after failed attempts to internally select singer Inna to represent Romania, which she declined due to commitments to her I Am the Club Rocker Tour for promoting her album under the same name.
Before Eurovision
Selecția Națională 2012
Selecția Națională 2012 was the national final format developed by TVR in order to select Romania's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. The competition took place at the TVR studios in Bucharest on 10 March 2012 and was hosted by Iulia Pârlea, Constantin Trofin, Valentin Paraschiv, Bogdan Iacob, Gianina Corondan and David Zory. The show was televised on TVR1, TVR HD, TVRi as well as online via the broadcaster's website tvr.ro. The official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv also provided an online stream for the competition.
Competing entries
TVR opened a submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries between 6 February 2012 and 23 February 2012. A wishlist of 84 artists was also published in order to encourage composers to write songs for them. The broadcaster received 109 submissions after the submission deadline passed, of which 97 were eligible for consideration. An expert committee reviewed the received submissions on 28 February 2012 and selected fifteen entries for the national final. The committee also reserved the right to change the performer of a selected song and should this be the case, composers were required to submit the final version of their songs with its new performers. The competing entries were announced on 29 February 2012.
The members of the expert committee that selected the fifteen entries were:
Dana Adam – MediaPro Music
Dan Popi – Cat Music
Cătălin Muraru – Roton Music
Sorin Sfârlea – Universal Music Romania
Manuel Dinculescu – Radio 21
Tony Teşiu – Radio ZU
Ştefan Naftanailă – Radio Romania
Dana Dorian – music critic
Eduard Cârcotă – composer
Ovidiu Cernăuţeanu – singer-songwriter, represented Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 George Natsis – composer