Lithuania was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "I've Been Waiting for This Night", written by Jonas Thander and Beatrice Robertsson. The song was performed by Donny Montell, who previously represented Lithuania in the 2012 contest with the song "Love Is Blind", placing 14th in the final. 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 2016 contest in Stockholm, Sweden. The national final took place over 10 weeks and involved 28 artists competing in two different competitive streams: artists that applied with a song and artists who didn't have a song, who were then matched with a song from the song submissions LRT received. The results of each show were determined by a combination of votes from a jury panel and a public vote. In the final, six artists and songs remained, and "I've Been Waiting For This Night" performed by Donny Montell was selected as the winner.
Lithuania was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2016. Performing during the show in position 9, "I've Been Waiting for This Night" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. It was later revealed that Lithuania placed fourth out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 222 points. In the final, Lithuania performed in position 16 and placed ninth out of the 26 participating countries, scoring 200 points.
Background
Prior to the 2016 contest, Lithuania had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 16 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 for the , Lithuania, to this point, had managed to qualify to the final seven times. In the 2015 contest, "This Time" performed by Monika Linkytė and Vaidas Baumila qualified to the final, where the song scored 30 points and placed 18th.
For the 2016 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 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 13 July 2015. On 6 October 2015, the broadcaster announced the organization of "Eurovizijos" dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka, which would be the national final to select Lithuania's entry for Stockholm.
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 2016. The competition involved a ten-week-long process that commenced on 9 January 2016 and concluded with a winning song and artist on 12 March 2016. The 10 shows took place at the LRT studios in Vilnius and were hosted by Andrius Rožickas and Gerūta Griniūtė. The shows were broadcast on LRT televizija, LRT Lituanica, and LRT Radijas, as well as online via the broadcaster's website lrt.lt. The final was also streamed online on the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv.
Format The Lithuanian broadcaster overhauled the format of the national final from that of previous years. For the 2016 competition, entries initially competed in two different subgroups: artists that entered without a song and artists that entered with a song. Artists that entered with a song were higher in number (16), and therefore two shows consisting of eight entries each were held on 9 and 16 January, resulting in the elimination of six entries all together. The remaining 10 entries participated in an additional two shows on 30 January and 13 February, where first two, and then three of the entries were eliminated, leaving five entries remaining in the group. The remaining 12 artists applied without a song and were matched with songs that LRT received during the submission period. An initial show was organised for this subgroup on 30 January, resulting in the elimination of two entries. The remaining 10 entries in this group participated in an additional two shows on 6 and 20 February, where first two, and then three, of the entries were eliminated, leaving five entries remaining in the group. During the eighth show, the remaining five entries from each group participated together for the first time and the bottom two entries were eliminated, while the remaining eight entries advanced to the competition's semi-final. In the semi-final, an additional two entries were eliminated and the top six proceeded to the final. In the final, the winner was selected from the remaining six entries.
The results of each of the 10 shows were determined by the 50/50 combination of votes from a jury panel and public televoting. 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 songs in the respective show. During the first eight shows and the final, the jury votes consisted of a combination of a Lithuanian jury panel and an international jury panel. For the semi-final, the jury votes were determined by a Lithuanian panel only. The public could vote through telephone and SMS voting. Initially, ties in all shows but the final were to be decided in favour of the entry that received the most votes from the public, however, during some shows, ties were decided in favour of the entry that received the most points from the jury, while in the final, a tie would be decided in favour of the entry that was awarded the most points by the jury.
Competing entries On 6 October 2015, LRT opened two separate submission forms: one for artists and another for songwriters to submit their songs. Artists that applied to compete with a song were required to indicate which song they wanted to compete with on their application. The submission deadline for both applications concluded on 1 December 2015. On 21 December 2015, LRT announced the 28 artists selected for the competition during a press conference. Among the artists were previous Lithuanian Eurovision contestants Erica Jennings, who represented Lithuania in 2001 as part of Skamp, and Donny Montell, who represented the nation in 2012. On 19 January 2016, the final changes to the list of 28 competing acts were made with the addition of Dovydas Petrošius and Evelyn Joyce to the list of performers and the withdrawal of the girl group HIT and singer Gabrielė Grygolaitytė-Vasha. Singer Aistė Pilvelytė was originally assigned to perform the song "You Can't Leave Me Now" written by Niklas Bergvist, however, she later opted to switch her song. Eglė Jakštytė originally entered the competition with "Leisk dar būti", a song entirely in Lithuanian, but she decided to translate the song to English after the second show.
Artist Song Songwriter(s) 4 Roses "Butterfly" Calle Kindbom, Dan Fernström, Viktor Brunö Aistė Pilvelytė "You Bet" Rafael Artesero, Aistė Pilvelytė Alice Way "Hero" Vaida Kalkauskaitė, Leon Somov Baiba "Mayday" Daniel Persson, Magnus Mikaelsson Behind the Moon "Did It All" Ugnė Kudlaitė Berta Timinskaitė "Stars in a Rainbow" Aidan O'Connor, Claus Christensen, Mikael Nordmark, Matilde Hemmingsen Catrinah "Be Free" Jekaterina Pranevič, Vitalij Rodevič, Pavel Rodevič Deividas Žygas "Survivors" Ylva Persson, Linda Persson, William Taylor Donny Montell "I've Been Waiting for This Night" Jonas Thander, Beatrice Robertsson Dovydas Petrošius "Starlight" Oleg Jerochin E.G.O. "Long Way from Home" Erik Dahlqvist, Aidan O'Connor, Göran Frid, Linda Dahl, Peter Dahl, Jimmy Glavå Eglė Jakštytė "Leisk dar būti" Eglė Jakštytė, Marius Matulevičius "Let Me Show You" Eglė Jakštytė, Marius Matulevičius, Andrius Kairys Elena Jurgaitytė "I Won't Come Back" Elena Jurgaitytė, Viktorija Šatkutė Erica Jennings "Leading Me Home" Erica Jennings Evelyn Joyce "When It Sings" Franz Bengtsson, Hans Olov Furberg Ieva Zasimauskaitė "Life (Not That Beautiful)" Joacim Dubbelman, Andreas Karlsson, Daniel Ström, Magnus Öunapuu, Mats Lekman Ištvan Kvik and Ellada "Please Don't Cry" Brandon Stone Jurgis Brūzga "Hold On" Jurgis Brūzga, Akmėja Brūzgė Lawreigna "Falling" Philip Bloom Milda Martinkėnaitė "If Tomorrow Never Comes" Joacim Dubbelman, Håkan Glänte Neringa Šiaudikytė "Never Knew Love" Tina Almqvist Hilli, Daniel Persson Petunija "Tomorrow" Vilius Tamošaitis – GeraiGerai, Agnė Šiaulytė Ruslanas Kirilkinas "In My World" Niklas Bergqvist "Ilgiuosi" Niklas Bergqvist, Arūnas Valinskas Rūta Ščiogolevaitė "United" Rūta Ščiogolevaitė, Michael James Down, Primož Poglajen, Thomas Reil, Jeppe Reil Saulenė Chlevickaitė "Strong" Aidan O'Connor, Fred Endresen Ugne Smile "You Don't Know" Ugnė Kudlaitė Valdas Lacko "Stay Tonight" Valdas Lacko, Paulius Jasiūnas, Monika Ratomskytė Vlad Max "Don't Wanna Let It Go" Silver Darter
Jury members The Lithuanian jury panel consisted of four members in the elimination shows, five members in the semi-final, and six members in the final. The international jury panel in the elimination shows and the final consisted of three members. +Lithuanian jury members by show Jury memberElimination shows Semi-final Final Occupation(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Dalia Ibelhauptaitė director, playwrightDalia Michelevičiūtė actressDarius Užkuraitis LRT Opus directorDonatas Ulvydas directorGintaras Rinkevičius director Justė Arlauskaitė singerKazimieras Šiaulys music critic, journalistLaima Lapkauskaitė producerNomeda Kazlaus opera singerOlegas Aleksejevas member of the group BiplanRamūnas Zilnys music reviewerTomas Sinickis musician, singer-songwriterVaidas Baumila singerValdas Burnys member of the group Išjunk šviesą +International jury members by show Jury memberCountryElimination shows Semi-final Final Occupation(s) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Brainstorm rowspan="9" music bandDave Holmes guitaristDenis Ingoldsby producerKarl Frierson member of the jazz ensemble De-PhazzKarlis Auzans musician, composerPeter Freudenthaler lead singer of the group Fools GardenSyron singerVanessa Lancaster vocalist for the ensemble Touch and GoWill Wells producer, musician, touring member of Imagine Dragons
Shows Elimination shows The eight elimination shows of the competition aired between 9 January and 27 February 2016 and featured the 28 competing entries. The first, second, fourth, and sixth show featured artists who already had a song when they applied to compete, while the third, fifth, and seventh show featured artists that did not have songs when they applied to compete. The eighth show featured all remaining entries in the competition. The bottom three entries of the first two shows were eliminated, while two were eliminated between the third to fifth shows, three were eliminated in the sixth and seventh shows and two were eliminated following the eighth show. 2000 Latvian entrant Brainstorm performed as the interval act during the seventh show.
+ Show 19 January 2016 Artist Song Jury Televote Total Place Lithuanian Total Points Votes Points 1 Alice Way "Hero" 8 5 13 8 343 6 14 5 2 Dovydas Petrošius "Starlight" 5 6 11 7 308 5 12 6 3 Behind the Moon "Did It All" 7 8 15 10 357 7 17 4 4 Erica Jennings "Leading Me Home" 12 10 22 12 720 8 20 2 5 Elena Jurgaitytė "I Won't Come Back" 4 4 8 6 237 4 10 7 6 Vlad Max "Don't Wanna Let It Go" 3 3 6 5 109 3 8 8 7 Petunija "Tomorrow" 6 7 13 8 794 10 18 3 8 Donny Montell "I've Been Waiting for This Night" 10 12 22 12 1,418 12 24 1