Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998
1998 Eurovision contestant
Estonia was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 1998 with the song "Mere lapsed", composed by Maria Rahula and Tomi Rahula, with lyrics by Peeter Pruuli, and performed by Koit Toome. The Estonian participating broadcaster, Eesti Televisioon (ETV), organised the national final Eurolaul '98 in order to select its entry for the contest. Ten songs competed in the national final and "Mere lapsed" performed by Koit Toome was selected as the winner by a jury panel.
Estonia competed in the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 9 May 1998. Performing during the show in position 23, Estonia placed twelfth out of the 25 participating countries, scoring 36 points.
Background
Prior to the 1998 contest, Eesti Televisioon (ETV) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Estonia three times since its first entry in 1994. Its best result in the contest was fifth, which was achieved in in 1996 with the song "Kaelakee hääl" performed by Maarja-Liis Ilus and Ivo Linna. In 1997, "Keelatud maa" performed by Maarja (in her second consecutive Eurovision appearance) placed eighth.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, ETV organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. Since its debut, the broadcaster has organised national finals that feature a competition among multiple artists and songs in order to select its entry for the contest.
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This entry incorporates text from “Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1998” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.