| Cyprus | |
| Contest: | ESC |
| Member Station: | Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) |
| Esc Apps: | 40 (33 finals) |
| Esc Best: | 2nd: |
| Current: | 2024 |
Cyprus has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 40 times since making its debut in . The Cypriot participant broadcaster in the contest is the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC). Its first entry was "Monika" performed by the group Island, who finished sixth. The country's best result is a second-place finish with "Spanish; Castilian: [[Fuego (Eleni Foureira song)|Fuego]]|i=unset" by Eleni Foureira in . Cyprus holds the record for most editions competing in the contest without a single win to date.
Between and, Cyprus failed to qualify from the semi-final round six times, before withdrawing in . On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed its return to the contest for, with the country then qualifying for the final every year since, a streak that lasted until its non-qualification in . Cyprus once again returned to the final in .
The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. It has participated in the contest representing Cyprus since its in 1981.
Since its first entry, CyBC has participated every year except for,, and . In 1988, CyBC withdrew its entry after it determined that the intended entry was ineligible; the song had been presented to jurors (but not selected) in the 1984 internal selection process, which was a violation of their selection rules. In 2001, the country did not qualify for the contest due to insufficiently high average scores in previous contests, according to the qualification process at the time. In 2014, the broadcaster decided to not participate in the contest and cited public indifference, public opinion regarding the 2012–13 Cypriot financial crisis, and related budget restrictions as factors for not taking part.[1] On 14 July 2014, CyBC officially confirmed their return to the contest in 2015.[2] [3] Cyprus hosted the Eurovision Song Project, which included 2 semi-finals, 1 second chance round and a final.[4] [5]
Since its return in 2015, Cyprus has only failed to qualify once, and even reached its best result with "Spanish; Castilian: [[Fuego (Eleni Foureira song)|Fuego]]|i=unset" by Eleni Foureira coming second in 2018. Cyprus holds the record for most editions competing in the contest without a single win to date. Most of the Cypriot entries have been sung in Greek or English; the exceptions are in, in which the song "Nomiza" included both Greek and Italian, and in, in which "Comme ci, comme ça" by Evridiki was entirely in French. Additionally, in both 2018 and, the songs had some phrases in Spanish.
Cyprus' exchange of the maximum 12 points with has occurred regularly in the contest, which is often met with derision from the audience.[6] In the 31 instances (1981–2024) of Cyprus being able to vote for Greece in a final, it has voted Greece as having the best song on 26 of them (the exceptions being 1981, 1985, 1990, 1991, 2015 and 2024). Since the introduction of televoting in, the two countries have consistently given each other the maximum 12 points except in 2015, when neither country gave their 12 points to the other, but both gave their maximum points to Italy.
Cyprus and never exchanged votes until 2003, a taboo attributed to the Cyprus dispute.
Since its first entry in 1981, Cyprus has had a mixture of varied results. The best result achieved so far is a second place, reached by Eleni Foureira at the 2018 contest.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Cyprus managed to reach the top 10 a number of times, something which made the Contest popular with the Cypriot public. Since 2004, Cyprus' performance has dropped notably. From 2006 to 2009 and again in 2011 and 2013, the country failed to reach the final.
At the same time when Cyprus' performance in the contest dropped vertically, Greece's performance improved very fast by one win and seven top ten results in one decade. This created a shift of interest, with the Cypriot public being more interested in the success of the Greek entry. This is probably because Greece, since 2004, seems to send very popular singers that have a well established fan-club in Cyprus, while Cyprus usually elects their contestants through an open talent contest, which often results in somewhat unknown artists representing the country.
| 1 | First place--> | |
| 2 | Second place | |
| 3 | Third place--> | |
| ◁ | Last place | |
| X | Entry selected but did not compete | |
| † | Upcoming event |
| Year | Entrant | Song | Language | Final | Points | Semi | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Island | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Monika (song)|Monika]]|i=unset" | Greek | 6 | 69 | colspan="2" rowspan="12" | ||
| Anna Vissi | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Mono i agapi]]|i=unset" | Greek | 5 | 85 | |||
| Stavros and Constantina | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[I agapi akoma zi]]|i=unset" | Greek | 16 | 26 | |||
| Andy Paul | "Anna Mari-Elena" | Greek | 15 | 31 | |||
| Lia Vissi | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[To katalava arga]]|i=unset" | Greek | 16 | 15 | |||
| Elpida | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Tora zo]]|i=unset" | Greek | 20 ◁ | 4 | |||
| Alexia | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Aspro mavro]]|i=unset" | Greek | 7 | 80 | |||
| Yiannis Dimitrou | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: Thimame|i=unset" | Greek | colspan="2" X | ||||
| Fanny Polymeri and Yiannis Savvidakis | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Apopse as vrethoume]]|i=unset" | Greek | 11 | 51 | |||
| Anastazio | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Milas poli]]|i=unset" | Greek | 14 | 36 | |||
| Elena Patroklou | "S.O.S." | Greek | 9 | 60 | |||
| Evridiki | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Teriazoume]]|i=unset" | Greek | 11 | 57 | |||
| Zymboulakis and Van Beke | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Mi stamatas]]|i=unset" | Greek | 19 | 17 | colspan="2" | ||
| Evridiki | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Eimai anthropos ki ego|Ime anthropos ki ego]]|i=unset" | Greek | 11 | 51 | colspan="2" rowspan="2" | ||
| Alexandros Panayi | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Sti fotia]]|i=unset" | Greek | 9 | 79 | |||
| Constantinos | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Mono gia mas]]|i=unset" | Greek | 9 | 72 | 15 | 42 | |
| Hara and Andreas Konstantinou | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Mana mou]]|i=unset" | Greek | 5 | 98 | colspan="2" rowspan="6" | ||
| Michael Hajiyanni | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Genesis (Michalis Hatzigiannis song)|Genesis]]|i=unset" | Greek | 11 | 37 | |||
| Marlain | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Tha 'nai erotas|Tha'ne erotas]]|i=unset" | Greek | 22 | 2 | |||
| Voice | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Nomiza]]|i=unset" | Greek, Italian | 21 | 8 | |||
| One | "Gimme" | English | 6 | 85 | |||
| Stelios Constantas | "Feeling Alive" | English | 20 | 15 | |||
| Lisa Andreas | "Stronger Every Minute" | English | 5 | 170 | 5 | 149 | |
| Constantinos Christoforou | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Ela Ela (Come Baby)|Ela Ela]]|i=unset" | English | 18 | 46 | colspan="2" | ||
| Annet Artani | "Why Angels Cry" | English | 15 | 57 | |||
| Evridiki | "French: [[Comme ci, comme ça]]|i=unset" | French | 15 | 65 | |||
| Evdokia Kadi | "French: [[Femme Fatale (Evdokia Kadi song)|Femme Fatale]]|i=unset" | Greek | 15 | 36 | |||
| Christina Metaxa | "Firefly" | English | 14 | 32 | |||
| Jon Lilygreen and the Islanders | "Life Looks Better in Spring" | English | 21 | 27 | 10 | 67 | |
| Christos Mylordos | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[San angelos s'agapisa|San aggelos s'agapisa]]|i=unset" | Greek | 18 | 16 | |||
| "La La Love" | English | 16 | 65 | 7 | 91 | ||
| "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[An me thimasai]]|i=unset" | Greek | 15 | 11 | ||||
| John Karayiannis | "One Thing I Should Have Done" | English | 22 | 11 | 6 | 87 | |
| Minus One | "Alter Ego" | English | 21 | 96 | 8 | 164 | |
| Hovig | "Gravity" | English | 21 | 68 | 5 | 164 | |
| Eleni Foureira | "Spanish; Castilian: [[Fuego (Eleni Foureira song)|Fuego]]|i=unset" | English | 2 | 436 | 2 | 262 | |
| Tamta | "Replay" | English | 13 | 109 | 9 | 149 | |
| Sandro | "Running" | English | colspan="4" X | ||||
| Elena Tsagrinou | "Spanish; Castilian: [[El Diablo (Elena Tsagrinou song)|El Diablo]]|i=unset" | English | 16 | 94 | 6 | 170 | |
| Andromache | "Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Ela (Andromache song)|Ela]]|i=unset" | English, Greek | 12 | 63 | |||
| Andrew Lambrou | "Break a Broken Heart" | English | 12 | 126 | 7 | 94 | |
| Silia Kapsis | "Liar" | English | 15 | 78 | 6 | 67 | |
| Year | Category | Song | Composer(s) lyrics (l) / music (m) | Performer | Final | Points | Host city | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Composer Award | "Stronger Every Minute" | Mike Konnaris (m & l) | Lisa Andreas | 5 | 170 |  Istanbul | |||
| Artistic Award | "Fuego" | Alex Papaconstantinou, Geraldo Sandell, Viktor Svensson, Anderz Wrethov Didrick | Eleni Foureira | 2 | 436 |  Lisbon |
| Year | Conductor | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
 Michael Rozakis | [7] | ||
| Martyn Ford | |||
| Michael Rozakis | |||
 Pierre Cao | |||
| Charis Andreadis | |||
| Martyn Ford | |||
 Jo Carlier | |||
 John Themis | |||
| Charis Andreadis | |||
| Stanko Selak | [8] | ||
 Alexander Kirov Zografov | |||
| George Theophanous | |||
| Stavros Lantsias | |||
| Costas Cacogiannis |
Each participating broadcaster in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers and backing vocalists, among others.[9]
| Year | Head of delegation | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Marios Skordis | |||
| Marios Skordis | |||
| Tasos Trifonos | |||
| - present | Evi Papamichael |
| Year | Television commentator | Radio commentator | Spokesperson | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| colspan="2" | rowspan="2" | [10] | ||
| – | colspan="2" | |||
| Fryni Papadopoulou | Neophytos Taliotis | Anna Partelidou | ||
| Pavlos Pavlou | ||||
| Themis Themistokleous | ||||
| Themis Themistokleous | Fryni Papadopoulou | |||
| Themis Themistokleous | ||||
| Daphne Bokota (for ERT and RIK) | ||||
| Neophytos Taliotis | Pavlos Pavlou | Anna Partelidou | ||
| Evi Papamichael | ||||
| Andreas Iakovidis | ||||
| Marios Skordis | ||||
| Marina Maleni | ||||
| Loukas Hamatsos | ||||
| Pavlos Pavlou | Melani Steliou | |||
| Loukas Hamatsos[11] | ||||
| rowspan="5" | ||||
| Melani Steliou | ||||
| Vaso Komninou | Giannis Haralambous | |||
| Melina Karageorgiou | Hristina Marouhou | |||
| Nathan Morley | Sophia Paraskeva | |||
| Christina Metaxa | ||||
| rowspan="2" | Loukas Hamatsos | |||
| Melina Karageorgiou | ||||
| Melina Karageorgiou | Loukas Hamatsos | |||
| Tasos Tryfonos and Christiana Artemiou | Tasos Tryfonos and Christiana Artemiou | |||
| Costas Constantinou and Vaso Komninou | rowspan="6" | |||
| Evridiki and Tasos Trifonos | ||||
| Loukas Hamatsos | ||||
| Melina Karageorgiou and Alexandros Taramountas | ||||
| Melina Karageorgiou and Hovig |
| Year | Stage director | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Fotis Nikolaou | ||
| 2008 | Fotis Nikolaou | ||
| 2009 | Fotis Nikolaou | ||
| 2011 | Fotis Nikolaou | ||
| 2012 | Apollon Papatheoharis | ||
| 2013 | Maria Liraraki | ||
| 2016 | Sacha Jean-Baptiste | ||
| 2017 | Charis Savva | ||
| 2018 | Sacha Jean-Baptiste | ||
| 2019 | Sacha Jean-Baptiste | ||
| 2021 | Marvin Dietmann | ||
| 2022 | Marvin Dietmann and Dan Shipton | ||
| 2023 | Marvin Dietmann and Ross Nicholson |
| Year | Costume designers | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Doukas Hatzidoukas | |||
| Marios Savvidis | |||
| Dionisis Kolpodinos | |||
| Andreas Zannetidis | |||
| Vrettos Vrettakos | |||
| Alexandre Katsaiti | |||
| Celia Kritharioti | |||
| Stelios Koudounaris |