Austria

Appearances
 First appearance
 Lowest rank

**Austria** has participated in the **Eurovision Song Festival** 11 times since making its debut in the second edition of the show. During none of these participations, the country qualified to the finals, making it the only country to have ever participated to not reach the final. The country came closest to qualifying in the third and eleventh editions of the show, finishing in twelfth place in the final.

## History

Although the Austrian broadcaster, ORF, stated that the country was looking at a potential debut in the first edition of the show, this debut never materialised. Later on, it was revealed that the broadcaster decided against participating due to a lack of personnel at the broadcaster who could form a delegation and steering group for the country's participation in the contest.

The debut of Austria did materialise in the second edition of the show. The country sent filous and Jordan Léser to the contest with the song "Shaded in" and placed sixteenth in their semi-final. Despite the lack of success at this edition of the contest, the broadcaster soon confirmed their participation in the third edition of the Eurovision Song Festival. Once again, the broadcaster selected their entry internally after making a public call for artists to submit their entry to the broadcaster. AVEC was selected to represent the country with the song "Dead". Despite being a fan favourite during this edition, Austria placed twelfth in their semi-final.

For the fourth edition, the broadcaster decided to change their approach to the contest. Instead of inviting artists to submit a song to the broadcaster, the broadcaster instead started to approach Austrian artists. Despite rumours that Conchita Wurst was approached, which they denied, the country's broadcaster selected Sedonia with "The world is not enough". The country brought a very impressive staging to the contest, but was not able to qualify to the final for the third time in a row, placing thirteenth in the semi-final. For the fifth edition, the broadcaster used the same approach and selected Anna F. as the country's entrant. She finished eighteenth in her semi-final.

After four non-qualifications, the interest of the Austrian public in the Eurovision Song Festival began to fall. This meant that ORF had to reconsider its approach to the contest and try to incorporate the Austrian public more in the selection process of an artist and song for the sixth edition. Although the delegation in charge of Austria's participation in the contest proposed to hold a televised national final, the broadcaster denied this request as it would be too expensive. Instead, the Austrian people were asked to send in artists they would like to see at the show. Conchita Wurst topped the vote, but declined the offer to take part in the contest. The artist placing second was Nathan Trent, but he also declined the offer to participate. Eventually, Mynth was selected to take part in the contest, after she placed third in the online vote. A total of 10,193 votes were cast, of which Mynth received 10%. She selected her song "Smog" for the contest. Despite high hopes of the delegation, she placed eighteenth in her semi-final, meaning that Austria once again failed to qualify.

After the disappointing results, the steering group for Austria's participation in the contest was fully changed. The delegation of the country decreased heavily in size, counting only six people instead of twelve. The new delegation had to save costs and decided to hold an open call for the seventh edition of the show, as the broadcaster did in the first two editions Austria participated. It was GuGabriel who was selected with the song "Salvation". She placed eighteenth in her semi-final as well. To select an entry for the Eurovision Song Festival 8, ORF approached Anna F. once more. She accepted the offer to participate, but finished in eighteenth place in her semi-final.

The country's broadcaster recorded a massive decline in viewing figures for the contest. While 310,000 people watched the second edition of the contest, only 55,000 watched the eigth edition. This led to speculation of an Austrian withdrawal from the contest. The country did however participate in the Eurovision Song Festival 9, where the country failed to qualify once more. During the tenth edition of the show, Austria even finished last in its semi-final, being the country's worst result to date. A record low amount of viewers watched this edition of the show, only 48,000 people tuned in to watch the show. As many people called for ORF to either withdraw from the contest or change its approach to the contest, the broadcaster did not change the selection process at all and continued to use the selection process of the broadcaster approaching Austrian artists. Eventually, former members of the delegation called for the current delegation members to withdraw from their position due to the bad results, decreasing the legitimacy of the members of the delegation. This led to a small disturbance within the broadcaster, especially after the head of delegation called the former delegation members "traitors" who "never wanted the best for Austria in the contest."

Despite this disturbance, the country confirmed its intention to take part in the eleventh edition of the show. Nathan Trent, the country's representative in the tenth edition of the show, publically announced that he wanted to take part in the contest again to take revenge for taking the last place in the semi-final in the tenth edition. He stated he would do everything possible to make Austria qualify to the finals for the first time ever. He was then selected by ORF to represent Austria. His mission failed however, as he placed twelfth in the semi-final. The viewing figures for the contest rose a little however, to 90,000.

For the twelfth edition of the show, ORF announced that they would approach the country's most well-known DJ to take part for the country, namely Parov Stellar. He accepted the offer and stated that it was an honour to represent Austria at such a big stage. However, during the preperations for his participation, he announced that he and ORF had "totally different ideas" about the staging and that he had to pay for his stay at the hotel in Bucharest himself, calling it "scandalous." After the huge backlash this caused, ORF offered to pay for his hotel stay, but Parov Stellar refused, stating that he would now "do Eurovision entirely on my terms." This led to complaints from ORF, as they were still in charge of his staging. Eventually, the conflicts between ORF and Parov Stellar led to him missing his rehearsals. During the live show, he reached the sixteenth place in the semi-final. Shortly after the broadcast of the final of the twelfth edition, ORF announced that the country would withdraw from the contest, announcing that the "ESF book is now entirely closed for the years to come."

The country came close to returning in the fifteenth edition of the contest, after Belarus withdrew last minute due to BTRC not following the conditions set by the EBO. The Azerbaijani host broadcaster İctimai Television called on ORF to take Belarus' place, with the Azerbaijani broadcaster paying for the participation costs of the country. ORF agreed and announced that the country would return. However, after two weeks of intense negotiations between the Belarusian broadcaster BTRC and the EBO, it was announced that Belarus could still take part in the contest, meaning that Austria's return did not materialise.

ORF confirmed that Austria would return to the sixteenth edition of the contest and the broadcaster formed an entirely new delegation that would be in charge for the country's participation. ORF made a public call in search of a suitable artist and song representing the country. Interest was still low however, due to the bad name of the contest after the scandal that took place during the twelfth contest. ORF received 45 submissions, of which none was found suitable to represent Austria in the contest. Furthermore, funding could not be secured in time for Austria's participation, meaning that the country was forced to withdraw.

The EBO confirmed that Austria would return to the Eurovision Song Festival 17 on 12 January 2023 when publishing the participation list. The country was represented by Toby Romeo and YouNotUs and qualified for the first time ever.

## Contestants

Table key
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