Switzerland was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 with the song "The Last of Our Kind" written by Christina Maria Rieder, Mike James, Jeff Dawson and Warne Livesey. The song was performed by Rykka, which is the artistic name of singer Christina Maria Rieder. The Swiss entry for the 2016 contest in Stockholm, Sweden was selected through the national final ESC 2016 – die Entscheidungsshow, organised by the Swiss German speaking broadcaster Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF) in collaboration with the other broadcasters part of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR). Artists that were interested in entering the Swiss national final had the opportunity to apply to one of three open selections with defined submission periods organised by SRF together with the Swiss-Romansh broadcaster Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR), the Swiss-French broadcaster Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) and/or the Swiss-Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI). A total of 19 entries were selected to advance to an "Expert Check" round; ten entries were selected from the SRF/RTR selection, six entries were selected from the RTS selection and three entries were selected from the RSI selection. The "Expert Check" was held on 6 December 2015 and involved four experts evaluating the live performances of the 19 entries and selecting six entries to advance to the televised national final—three artists and songs from the SRF/RTR candidates, two from the RTS candidates and one from the RSI candidates. The six finalists performed during the national final on 13 February 2016 where a combination of jury voting and public voting ultimately selected "The Last of Our Kind" performed by Rykka as the winner.

Switzerland 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 3, "The Last of Our Kind" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. It was later revealed that Switzerland placed eighteenth (last) out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 28 points.

Background

Prior to the 2016 contest, Switzerland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-six times since its first entry in 1956. Switzerland is noted for having won the first edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Refrain" performed by Lys Assia. Their second and, to this point, most recent victory was achieved in 1988 when Canadian singer Céline Dion won the contest with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi". Following the introduction of semi-finals for the , Switzerland had managed to participate in the final four times up to this point. In 2005, the internal selection of Estonian girl band Vanilla Ninja, performing the song "Cool Vibes", qualified Switzerland to the final where they placed 8th. Due to their successful result in 2005, Switzerland was pre-qualified to compete directly in the final in 2006. Between 2007 and 2010, the nation failed to qualify to the final after a string of internal selections. Since opting to organize a national final from 2011 onwards, Switzerland has managed to qualify to the final twice out of the last five years. In 2015, Switzerland earned one of their lowest results of all-time, with Mélanie René and her song "Time to Shine" placing last in their semi-final earning only 4 points.

The Swiss national broadcaster, Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), broadcasts the event within Switzerland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. SRG SSR confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on 20 July 2015. Along with their participation confirmation, the broadcaster also announced that the Swiss entry for the 2016 contest would be selected through a national final. Switzerland has selected their entry for the Eurovision Song Contest through both national finals and internal selections in the past. Between 2005 and 2010, the Swiss entry was internally selected for the competition. Since 2011, the broadcaster has opted to organize a national final in order to select their entry.

Before Eurovision ESC 2016 – die Entscheidungsshow ESC 2016 – die Entscheidungsshow was the sixth edition of the Swiss national final format that selected Switzerland's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. The national final was a collaboration between four broadcasters in Switzerland: the Swiss-German broadcaster Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), the Swiss-French broadcaster Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), the Swiss-Italian broadcaster Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI) and the Swiss-Romansh broadcaster Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR). The show took place on 13 February 2016 at the Bodensee Arena in Kreuzlingen, hosted by Sven Epiney and was televised on SRF 1, RSI La 2 with Italian commentary by Clarissa Tami and RTS Deux with French commentary by Nicolas Tanner and Jean-Marc Richard. The competition was also streamed online at the respective official website of each Swiss broadcaster as well as at the official Eurovision Song Contest website eurovision.tv.

Selection process The selection process took place in three stages before the finalists for the live show and ultimately the winner are selected. The first stage of the competition included SRF/RTR, RTS and RSI each conducting varying selections in order to determine the candidates they submitted for the second stage of the competition. SRF/RTR submitted ten candidates, RTS submitted six candidates and RSI submitted three candidates. The second stage was the Expert Check live audition, where the 19 selected candidates performed the songs that qualified from their respective broadcaster selections. A jury panel selected three artists and songs to qualify from the SRF/RTR selection, two from the RTS selection and one from the RSI selection. The six artists and songs proceed to the third stage, the televised national final, where the winning artist and song was selected to represent Switzerland in Stockholm.

The SRF/RTR selection involved an online internet voting platform where interested artists could submit their songs and have them listed for public listening. The platform accepted entries between 28 September 2015 and 26 October 2015. 167 entries were submitted following the submission deadline, including entries from 1997 Swiss entrant Barbara Berta and 2005 and 2017 Slovenian entrant Omar Naber. Internet users had between 2 and 16 November 2015 to vote for their favourite entries and their votes were combined with the votes from an expert jury. The jury included the head of shows and events at SRF Sven Sarbach, entertainment program developer for SRF Martin Bloch, vocal coach Tanja Dankner, producer Yvan Peacemaker, Radio SRF 3 host Michel Birri and 360° Show Production AG representative Denise Vogel. On 24 November 2015, the top ten entries for the "Expert Check" were announced. The RTS selection involved interested artists submitting their entries to the broadcaster between 17 July 2015 and 23 October 2015. Following an internal selection, the six candidates for the "Expert Check" were announced on 24 November 2015. RSI opened a submission period between 24 July 2015 and 26 October 2015 for interested artists and composers to submit their entries. On 9 November 2015, a jury panel consisting of 2008 Swiss contest entrant Paolo Meneguzzi, 2012 Swiss contest entrant Gabriel Broggini (Sinplus) and Simone Tomassini evaluated the 30 entry submissions received and selected the three candidates that proceeded to the "Expert Check".

Expert Check The "Expert Check" of the nineteen selected candidates was webcast from SRF Studio 5 in Zürich on 6 December 2015 and was hosted by Sven Epiney. The candidates performed their songs in front of an expert panel which assessed the performers on criteria such as live performance skills, voice quality and stage presence. The expert panel consisted of choreographer Rafael Antonio, vocal coach and singer Tanja Dankner, SRF Eurovision editor Daniel Meister (representative of SRF), the director of Option Musique Catherine Colombara (representative of RTS), and musician Andrea Bignasca (representative of RSI). Three artists and songs qualified from the SRF/RTR selection, two from the RTS selection and one from the RSI selection. "Perché mi guardi cosi?" performed by Stéphanie Palazzo was originally selected to advance from the "Expert Check", however the song was disqualified on 11 December 2015 as it was published, originally in French, prior to the 1 September 2015 deadline, making it ineligible for the Eurovision Song Contest. "Disque d'or" performed by Kaceo was selected as the replacement entry from the RTS candidates. +Expert Check6 December 2015Channel ArtistSongResultRTS 1Loïc Schumacher"Génération demain" 2Stéphanie Palazzo"Perché mi guardi così?"Disqualified 3Kaceo"Disque d'or"Advanced 4Stéphanie Sandoz"Flashback" 5Bella C"Another World"Advanced 6Gina von Glasow"Left with an Idiot" RSI 7Nathalie Cadlini"Share Love" 8Theo"Because of You"Advanced 9Elias"Elephant" SRF/RTR 10Stanley Miller"Feel the Love"Advanced 11Maika"The Reason" 12Erica Arnold"Ich bin ich" 13Platzhirsch"Holz vor dr Hütta" 14Samuel Tobias Klauser"Asking Me Why" 15Rykka"The Last of Our Kind"Advanced 16Evelyn Zangger"Have a Little Faith in Me" 17Sunanda"Ooops!?!" 18Vincent Gross"Half a Smile"Advanced 19Patric Scott feat. Abdullah Alhussainy"No Boundaries" +Competing entriesArtistSongSongwriter(s)Bella C"Another World"Ricardo Sanz, Steven Parry, Borislava PanosettiKaceo"Disque d'or"Nicolas Vivier, Karim Maghraoui, Luis Pisconte, Florian Casarsa, Quentin Mathieu, OxsaRykka"The Last of Our Kind"Christina Maria Rieder, Mike James, Jeff Dawson, Warne LiveseyStanley Miller"Feel the Love"William Luque, Natascia Da PratoTheo"Because of You"Matteo RossiVincent Gross"Half a Smile"Charlie Mason

Final The final took place on 13 February 2016. The show consisted of two parts: in the first part the six candidate songs in contention to represent Switzerland were performed and in the second part each artist performed a cover version of a song of their choice. The combination of televoting (50%) and the votes of an expert jury (50%) selected "The Last of Our Kind" performed by Rykka as the winner. The jury consisted of Peter Ramón Baumann (Vice President of OGAE Switzerland), Yvan Peacemaker (producer), Hana Gadze (music editor SRF), Mélanie René (singer, Swiss Eurovision contestant in 2015), Flavio Tuor (music producer RTR), Laurent Pavia (music producer RTS), Licia Chery (singer, 3rd in the 2015 Swiss selection), Priscille Alber (music programmer), Romina Bruschi (singer) and Nicola Locarnini (musician).

In addition to the performances from the competing artists, Austrian Eurovision Song Contest 2014 winner Conchita Wurst opened the show with her song "Firestorm" and also performed "Rise Like a Phoenix" as the interval act together with Flavio Rizzello, the winner of the talent show competition Die grössten Schweizer Talente.

+ Final13 February 2016 Artist Song Song Place 1 Vincent Gross "Half a Smile" 7"Astronaut" 3 2 Bella C "Another World" 8"Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down" 2 3 Kaceo "Disque d'or" 9"Video Killed the Radio Star" 6 4 Theo "Because of You" 10"Photograph" 5 5 Rykka "The Last of Our Kind" 11"Love Me Like You Do" 1 6 Stanley Miller "Feel the Love" 12"Hello" 4

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