Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013
Azerbaijan participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 with the song "Hold Me" written by Dimitris Kontopoulos, John Ballard and Ralph Charlie. The song was performed by Farid Mammadov. The Azerbaijani entry for the 2013 contest in Malmö, Sweden was selected through Milli Seçim Turu 2013, organised by the Azerbaijani broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV). Following eight semi-finals and a final on 14 March 2013, a six-member jury selected "Hold Me" performed by Farid Mammadov as the winner.
| Eurovision Song Contest 2013 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Azerbaijan | |||
| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Milli Seçim Turu 2013 | |||
| Selection date(s) | Semi-finals: 17 December 2012 – 8 March 2013 Final: 14 March 2013 | |||
| Selected entrant | Farid Mammadov | |||
| Selected song | "Hold Me" | |||
| Selected songwriter(s) |
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| Finals performance | ||||
| Semi-final result | Qualified (1st, 139 points) | |||
| Final result | 2nd, 234 points | |||
| Azerbaijan in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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Azerbaijan was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 16 May 2013. Performing during the show in position 4, "Hold Me" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 18 May. It was later revealed that Azerbaijan placed first out of the 17 participating countries in the semi-final with 139 points. In the final, Azerbaijan performed in position 20 and placed second out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 234 points.