Lithuania in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008
Lithuania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with the song "Nomads in the Night" written by Vytautas Diškevičius and Jeronimas Milius. The song was performed by Jeronimas Milius. The Lithuanian broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) organised the national final "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka (Eurovision Song Contest national selection) in order to select the Lithuanian entry for the 2008 contest in Belgrade, Serbia. The national final took place over four weeks and involved 34 competing entries. Entries that advanced in the competition were determined by the combination of votes from a jury panel and a public vote. In the final, fourteen entries remained and a public vote entirely selected "Nomads in the Night" performed by Jeronimas Milius as the winner with 11,674 votes. Lithuania was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 22 May 2008. Performing during the show in position 5, "Nomads in the Night" was not announced among the 10 qualifying entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Lithuania placed sixteenth out of the 19 participating countries in the semi-final with 30 points. Background Prior to the 2008 contest, Lithuania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest eight times since its first entry in 1994. The nation’s best placing in the contest was sixth, which it achieved in 2006 with the song "We Are the Winners" performed by LT United. Following the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Lithuania, to this point, has managed to qualify to the final two times. In the 2007 contest, "Love or Leave" performed by 4Fun automatically qualified to the final where the song scored 28 points and placed 21st. For the 2008 contest, the Lithuanian national broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), broadcast the event within Lithuania and organised the selection process for the nation's entry. Other than the internal selection of their debut entry in 1994, Lithuania has selected their entry consistently through a national final procedure. LRT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest on 29 October 2007 and announced the organization of "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka, which would be the national final to select Lithuania's entry for Belgrade. Before Eurovision "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka (Eurovision Song Contest national selection) was the national final format developed by LRT in order to select Lithuania's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. The competition involved a four-week-long process that commenced on 12 January 2008 and concluded with a winning song and artist on 2 February 2008. The four shows took place at the LRT studios in Vilnius and were broadcast on LTV, LTV World and Lietuvos Radijas as well as online via the broadcaster's website lrt.lt. Format The Lithuanian broadcaster downsized the format of the national final from that of previous years. The 2008 competition involved 34 entries and consisted of four shows. 32 of the