Lithuania was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 with the song "This Time", written by Vytautas Bikus and Monika Linkytė. The song was performed by Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila. The Lithuanian broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) organised the national final "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka (Eurovision Song Contest national selection) in order to select the Lithuanian entry for the 2015 contest in Vienna, Austria. The national final took place over eight weeks and involved 12 artists and 12 songs competing in two different competitive streams. The results of each show were determined by the combination of votes from a jury panel and a public vote, and "This Time" performed by Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila eventually emerged as the winner following the final.

Lithuania was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 21 May 2015. Performing as the opening entry for the show in position 1, "This Time" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 23 May. It was later revealed that Lithuania placed seventh out of the 17 participating countries in the semi-final with 67 points. In the final, Lithuania performed in position 7 and placed 18th out of the 27 participating countries, scoring 30 points.

Background

Prior to the 2015 contest, Lithuania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 15 times since its first entry in 1994. The nation’s best placing in the contest was sixth, which it achieved in 2006 with the song "We Are the Winners", performed by LT United. Following the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Lithuania, to this point, had managed to qualify for the final six times. In the 2014 contest, "Attention" performed by Vilija failed to qualify to the final.

For the 2015 contest, the Lithuanian national broadcaster, Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT), broadcast the event within Lithuania and organised the selection process for the nation's entry. Other than the internal selection of their debut entry in 1994, Lithuania has selected their entry consistently through a national final procedure. LRT confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest on 4 June 2014 and announced the organization of "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka, which would be the national final to select Lithuania's entry for Vienna.

Before Eurovision "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka (Eurovision Song Contest national selection) was the national final format developed by LRT in order to select Lithuania's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. The competition involved an eight-week-long process that commenced on 3 January 2015 and concluded with a winning song on 14 February 2015 and a winning artist on 21 February 2015. The eight shows took place at the LRT studios in Vilnius and were hosted by Simona Nainė and Arūnas Valinskas. Audrius Giržadas replaced Valinskas as a host during the fourth show. The shows were broadcast on LRT televizija, LRT Lituanica, and LRT Radijas, as well as online via the broadcaster's website lrt.lt.

Format The 2015 competition consisted of eight shows and involved artists competing independently from songs, potentially being paired with any of the selected songs. Rule changes included the ability for artists to indicate a preference to perform a particular song on their application. Should the artist and their song reach the final, the artist and the composers were to agree to allow the other finalists to perform the song. In the first six shows, the 12 competing artists performed covers that related to the theme of that particular show and the potential Eurovision songs. The voting results from the first show were combined with those of the second show and the first artist was eliminated. During each of the third to sixth shows, one artist was eliminated and the remaining three artists advanced in the competition. Starting from the third show, the 12 potential Eurovision songs competed online on a weekly basis and a total of nine songs were eliminated following the sixth show, leaving three songs remaining. The seventh show was the competition's semi-final, where only the winning song was selected from the remaining three songs, while the eighth show was the final, where the winning artist-song combination was selected from the remaining three artists. Monetary prizes were also awarded to both the winning artist and songwriters. The Lithuanian Copyright Protection Association (LATGA) sponsored 15,000 LTL, awarded to the songwriters in order to encourage further development of the song in an aim to achieve international success, while the Music Association Annual Awards (MAMA) sponsored 5,000 LTL, awarded to the artist in order to assist in their preparation for the Eurovision Song Contest.

The results of each of the eight shows were determined by the 50/50 combination of votes from a jury panel and public televoting. The jury votes in all shows consisted of a combination of a Lithuanian jury panel and an international jury panel. During the first seven shows, the members of the Lithuanian panel were required to come to a consensus in order to assign one set of points, which were added to the points awarded by each member of the international panel. In the final, the Lithuanian and international panels voted together. The public could vote through telephone and SMS voting, and the ranking developed by both streams of voting was converted to points from 1-8, 10 and 12 and assigned based on the number of competing artists in the respective show. Ties in the elimination shows and the semi-final were decided in favour of the entry that received the most votes from the public, while in the final, a tie would be decided in favour of the entry that was awarded the most points by the jury.

Competing artists and songs On 31 October 2014, LRT opened two separate submission forms: one for artists and another for songwriters to submit their songs. The submission deadline for both applications concluded on 15 December 2014. On 18 December 2014, LRT announced the 12 artists selected for the competition. The 12 potential Eurovision songs selected from 168 submissions received were announced for listening and voting on 13 January 2015. The song "Skęstu" was originally entered in Lithuanian, however, the song was also translated and performed in English during the fourth elimination show.

Artist and song progress in the shows

Artists Artist Shows1 + 2 Show 3 Show 4 Show 5 Show 6 Show 7 Show 8(Final) Monika Linkytė 5th 1st 5th 3rd 1st rowspan="3" 1st Vaidas Baumila 1st 5th 6th 2nd 3rd Mia 4th 7th 1st 1st 2nd 2nd Edgaras Lubys 3rd 2nd 3rd 4th 4th Eliminated (Show 6) Jurgis Brūzga 9th 9th 4th 5th 5th Eliminated (Show 6) Liepa Mondeikaitė 7th 3rd 2nd 6th Eliminated (Show 5) Neringa Šiaudikytė 11th 8th 7th 7th Eliminated (Show 5) Tadas Juodsnukis 2nd 4th 8th Eliminated (Show 4) Milita Daikerytė 8th 6th Withdrew (Show 4) Reda Striškaitė 6th 10th Eliminated (Show 3) Wilma La 10th 11th Eliminated (Show 3) Rollikai 12th Eliminated (Show 2)

Songs Song Songwriter(s) Place Result "This Time" Vytautas Bikus, Monika Liubinaitė 1st Winner (Show 7) "The Right Way" Tina Almqvist Hilli, Daniel Persson 2nd Eliminated (Show 7) "Dangerous (S.O.S.)" Camilla Gottschalck, Christina Schilling, Henrik Szabo, Daniel Nilsson, Amir Aly 3rd Eliminated (Show 7) "Not Perfect" Edgaras Lubys 4th Eliminated (Show 6) "Feel My Love" José Juan Santana Rodríguez 5th–9th Eliminated (Show 6) "No More Tears" Patrik Öhlund, Madelene Hamberg 5th–9th Eliminated (Show 6) "Flying" Leon Somov, Linas Strockis, Monika Linkytė 5th–9th Eliminated (Show 6) "Skęstu" "Sound of Colours" Daði Georgsson, Íris Hólm, Jonas Gladnikoff, Camilla Gottschalck, Christina Schilling 5th–9th Eliminated (Show 6) "Take My Love" Brandon Stone 5th–9th Eliminated (Show 6) "Es tut mir nicht leid" Natalja Chareckaja 10th–11th Eliminated (Show 4) "Factory Hearts" Darragh Reck, Barry Grace, Paul Murphy 10th–11th Eliminated (Show 4) "Say You Love Me" Edgaras Lubys 12th Eliminated (Show 3)

Jury members The Lithuanian jury panel consisted of four members in the elimination shows and the semi-final, and two members in the final. The international jury panel consisted of two members in the first elimination show, and three members in the remaining shows. +Lithuanian jury members by show Jury memberElimination shows Semi-final Final Occupation(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6Audrius Giržadas LRT televizija chief producerDarius Užkuraitis musicologist, LRT Opus directorEdmundas Seilius opera singerGediminas Zujus producerGintaras Rinkevičius conductorIeva Norkūnienė choreographerJuozas Liesis journalistJustė Arlauskaitė singerLinas Adomaitis musicianRamūnas Zilnys music reviewerRosita Čivilytė singer Sigutė Stonytė opera singer Vytautas Lukočius conductor +International jury members by show Jury memberCountryElimination shows Semi-final Final Occupation 1 2 3 4 5 6Eric Lehmann President of OGAE LuxembourgLela Tsurtsumia singerPeter Jenner music managerRalfs Eilands singerRené Romkes organiser of the Eurovision in Concert event

Shows

Elimination shows The six elimination shows of the competition aired between 3 January and 7 February 2015. In the first two shows, the artists performed covers that related to the theme of that particular show: Lithuanian hit songs in the first show and worldwide hit songs in the second show. The results of the two shows were combined and one artist was eliminated. The remaining 11 artists in the competition performed the potential Eurovision songs starting from the third show. The artists each performed one song between the third and fifth shows and two songs in the sixth show, and one artist was eliminated per show.

The group Rollikai, which was eliminated following the second show, recorded a performance for the song "Sound of Colours" for the third show, however, the performance was not part of the show as they were previously eliminated. Following the third show, Milita Daikerytė withdrew from the competition due to illness.

Key Eliminated

+ Show 13 January 2015 Artist Song (original artists)JuryTelevote Total Place Votes Points Votes Points 1 Mia "Man patinka" (Džordana Butkutė)1232786 9 5 2 Reda Striškaitė "Kai sirpsta vyšnios Suvalkijoj" (Vytautas Kernagis)622265 7 8 3 Edgaras Lubys "Širdis ant balto sniego" (Natalija Bunkė)23103088 18 3 4 Monika Linkytė "Besieliai"2171300 7 9 5 Tadas Juodsnukis "Nakty" (Kastytis Kerbedis) 231036612 22 1 6 Wilma La "Laužo šviesa" (Foje)001421 1 12 7 Rollikai "Violeta" (Kastytis Kerbedis)62390 2 11 8 Liepa Mondeikaitė "Aš mylėjau tave tau nežinant" (Aktorių trio)1442064 8 6 9 Vaidas Baumila "Aš tik žmogus"29123077 19 2 10 Milita Daikerytė "Tarp tavęs ir manęs"21732910 17 4 11 Jurgis Brūzga "1000 dienų"1551703 8 7 12 Neringa Šiaudikytė "Meilę skolingas tau" (Stasys Povilaitis)401642 2 10 + Artist scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" Total 1 Mia 3 7 2 12 2 Reda Striškaitė 1 1 4 6 3 Edgaras Lubys 12 10 1 23 4 Monika Linkytė 8 8 521 5 Tadas Juodsnukis 10 6 7 23 6 Wilma La 0 7 Rollikai 3 3 6 8 Liepa Mondeikaitė 6 8 14 9 Vaidas Baumila 7 12 1029 10 Milita Daikerytė 4 5 1221 11 Jurgis Brūzga 5 4 615 12 Neringa Šiaudikytė 2 24