Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021
Croatia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The national broadcaster, (HRT), organised the national selection to select the country's representative. Background. Prior to the 2021 Contest, Croatia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twenty-five times since its first entry in . Croatia's highest placing in the contest, to this point, has been fourth place, which the nation achieved on two occasions: in 1996 with the song "" performed by Maja Blagdan and in 1999 "" performed by Doris Dragović. Following the introduction of semi-finals for the  2004 contest, Croatia had featured in seven finals. In 2019, Croatia failed to qualify to the final, placing 14th in the second semi-final with the song "The Dream" performed by Roko. In 2020, Damir Kedžo was due to represent Croatia with the song "" before the contest's cancellation. Before Eurovision. Section::::"Dora 2021". The national broadcaster Hrvatska radiotelevizija (HRT) organised in order to select the nation's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. The competition consisted of fourteen entries competing in one final held on 13 February 2021 at the Marino Cvetković Sports Hall in Opatija, broadcast on HRT  1 and HRT 2 as well as online via the broadcaster's streaming service HRTi and hosted by Daniela Trbović, Barbara Kolar, Jelena Lešić and Doris Pinčić Rogoznica. Competing entries. On 26 October 2020, HRT opened a submission period where artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster with the deadline on 10 December 2020. Unlike in 2020, where songs submitted to the contest were required to be in either English, French, Italian or Croatian, the 2021 edition expanded its rules to any European language. 140 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period . A five-member expert committee consisting of Andrej Babić (HGU, HDS), Hrvoje Prskalo (HDS), Matija Cvek (HGU), Monika Lelas (HRT) and Uršula Tolj (HRT) reviewed the received submissions and selected fourteen artists and songs for the competition. HRT announced the competing entries on 15 December 2020 and among the competing artists, Tony Cetinski represented Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994, while Nina Kraljić represented Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. Final. The final took place on 13 February 2021. The running order was announced on 18 January 2021. The winner, "Tick-Tock" performed by Albina, was determined by  a 50/50 combination of votes from ten regional juries and a public televote. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 580 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 1-8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through telephone and SMS voting. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 580 points rounded to the nearest integer: 58 points. Ties were decided in favour of the entry ranked higher by the public  televote. Controversy. After the final, Nina Kraljić alleged that there were problems with her rehearsals, where she had to listen to Albina's song in her in-ear headphones instead of her own. She also said that many people couldn't vote for her due to telecommunication problems. Two days later, Kraljić removed her Facebook page as well as her Instagram page. On the next day, the family of another contestant, Bernarda Brunović, also alleged that they got an information from Croatian Head of Delegation Uršula Tolj that they could not win because they were on a "blacklist". They also  confirmed Nina Kraljić's earlier allegations. Uršula Tolj commented on this a day later, where she confirmed that everything was done right and that there have been no problems with the voting that would affect the final result. She also dismissed the allegations that there existed a "blacklist". At Eurovision. According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final  progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. For the 2021 contest, the semi-final allocation draw held for 2020 which was held on 28 January 2020, was used. Croatia was placed into the first semi-final, which was held on 18 May 2021, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show. Once all the competing songs for the 2021 contest had been released, the running order for  the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Croatia was set to perform in position 10, following the entry from Norway and preceding the entry from Belgium. At the end of the show Croatia was not announced among 10 qualifiers of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Croatia placed 11th in the first semi-final, with 110 points: 53 points from the televoting and 57 points from the juries. Voting . Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with a diversity in gender and age represented. The judges assess each entry based on the performances during the second Dress Rehearsal of each show, which takes place the night before each live show, against a set of criteria including: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the  overall impression by the act. Jury members may only take part in panel once every three years, and are obliged to confirm that they are not connected to any of the participating acts in a way that would impact their ability to vote impartially. Jury members should also vote independently, with no discussion of their vote permitted with other jury members. The exact composition of the professional jury, and the results of each country's jury and televoting were released after the grand final; the individual results from each jury member were also released in an anonymised form. Detailed voting  results. The following members comprised the Croatian jury: