Eurovision Song Contest 2011
Country	Azerbaijan
National selection
Selection process	Artist: Milli Seçim Turu 2011 Song: Internal selection
Selection date(s)	Artist: 11 February 2011 Song: 14 March 2011
Selected entrant	Ell and Nikki
Selected song	"Running Scared"
Selected songwriter(s)	Stefan Örn Sandra Bjurman Iain James Farquharson
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (2nd, 122 points)
Final result	1st, 221 points
Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2010 • 2011 • 2012►

Azerbaijan participated in and won the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 with the song "Running Scared" written by Stefan Örn, Sandra Bjurman and Iain James Farquharson. The song was performed by Ell and Nikki. The Azerbaijani Eurovision entrant for the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, Germany was selected through Milli Seçim Turu 2011, organised by the Azerbaijani broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV). Following seven heats, a semi-final and a final on 11 February 2011, a seven-member jury selected Nigar Jamal and Eldar Gasimov as the winner. The song "Running Scared" was internally selected and presented to the public on 14 March.

Azerbaijan was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 10 May 2011. Performing during the show in position 18, "Running Scared" was announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. It was later revealed that Azerbaijan placed second out of the 19 participating countries in the semi-final with 122 points. In the final, Azerbaijan performed in position 19 and placed first out of the 25 participating countries, scoring 221 points. This was Azerbaijan's first win in the Eurovision Song Contest since its first entry in 2008.

Background

Prior to the 2011 contest, Azerbaijan had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest three times since its first entry in 2008.^[1] Since their debut in 2008, Azerbaijan has had a string of successful results, qualifying to the final and placing in the top ten each year, including a third-place result in 2009 with the song "Always" performed by AySel and Arash. In 2010, Azerbaijan placed fifth with the song "Drip Drop" performed by Safura.

The Azerbaijani national broadcaster, İctimai Television (İTV), broadcasts the event within Azerbaijan and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. İTV confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest on 31 May 2010.^[2] Azerbaijan had used various methods to select the Azerbaijani entry in the past, including internal selections as well as national finals to select both the artist and song. For their 2011 entry, the broadcaster opted to organize a new national final titled Milli Seçim Turu, which featured a similar process to the Land of Fire national final used in 2008 and 2010 where the selection of a winning performer would subsequently be given an internally selected song to perform at Eurovision.^[3]

Before Eurovision

Milli Seçim Turu 2011

Milli Seçim Turu 2011 was the national final organised by İTV that selected the Azerbaijani contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2011. The competition consisted of nine shows that commenced on 15 November 2010 and concluded with a winning artist on 11 February 2011. All shows were broadcast on İTV and streamed online via the broadcaster's website itv.az. The final was also streamed online at the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv and broadcast in Turkey on TRT Avaz as well as in Georgia on the GPB First Channel.^[4]

Format

The national final consisted of two stages. The first stage involved interested artists attending auditions after submitting applications between 5 and 15 October 2010.^[5] Eligible artists were those that were citizens of Azerbaijan or part of the Azerbaijani diaspora.^[6] 77 artists selected from 120 applicants advanced to the second stage, the televised shows.^[7][8] Nine shows including seven heats between 15 November 2010 and 31 December 2011 selected one artist from each show that would advance to the semi-final in January 2011.^[9] In the semi-final, five artists were selected to advance to the final on 11 February 2011. In the final, the winner was selected from the remaining five artists.^[10]

The results of the heats and semi-final were determined by the 50/50 combination of votes from public televoting and a seven-member jury panel. Each heat and semi-final took place across five days where the artists each performed cover versions of various songs in order to showcase their voice, dance ability and stage presence: world hits on Monday, Eurovision hits on Tuesday, Azerbaijani songs on Wednesday and a song of their choice on Thursday. The results were announced on Friday.^[11] For each of the eight shows, the public was able to cast their votes through telephone or SMS over the five days. In the final, the jury selected the Azerbaijani Eurovision contestant.^[5]

The members of the jury were:^[12]

Shows

Heats

The seven heats took place between 15 November 2010 and 31 December 2010 at the İTV studios in Baku, hosted by Husniyya Maharramova and Leyla Aliyeva. The 77 artists each performed cover versions of various songs over five days and one artist was selected from each heat to advance to the semi-final based on the results of a public televote and a jury.^[13] Tarik Yigit only participated in the first day of the first heat and therefore was disqualified from the competition.^[14] Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal were awarded wildcards by the jury from the non-qualifying acts to advance to the semi-final.^[15][16] Nicola Barclay was also awarded a jury wildcard, however she withdrew on 11 January 2011 due to illness and changes in the competition format.^[17]