Romania was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 with the song "", written by Andrei Ursu, Cezar Gună, Alexandru Turcu, and Costel Dominteanu, and performed by Ursu himself under his stage name Wrs. The Romanian participating broadcaster, (TVR), organised the national final 2022 in order to select its entry for the contest. The national final consisted of three shows, including two semi-finals and a final. A total of 46 entries were selected and 10 qualifiers ultimately competed in the final on 5 March 2022, where the winner scoring top marks from both a jury panel and a public televote was selected.
Romania was drawn to compete in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 12 May 2022. Performing during the show in position 13, "" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and hence qualified to compete in the final. In the final, Romania placed 18th with 65 points. It was later revealed that the country placed 9th in the semi-final with 118 points.
Background
Prior to the 2022 contest, (TVR) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Romania 21 times since its first entry in . To this point, its highest placing in the contest has been third place, achieved on two occasions: in with the song "Let Me Try" performed by Luminița Anghel and Sistem, and in with the song "Playing with Fire" performed by Paula Seling and Ovi.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, TVR organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. In , the broadcaster did not fully select its representative by means of the national final format for the first time ever. They collaborated instead with Global Records to internally select the entrant, Roxen, with the entry "Alcohol You" being selected through a national final. However, the contest was ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Roxen was internally re-selected to take part in the contest with the song "Amnesia", which failed to qualify to the final, placing 12th in the first semi-final. This marked the third consecutive time that the nation failed to qualify to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004. Following the televised debate ("Eurovision... frankly!") on 5 July 2021 which featured personalities of the national music industry, the broadcaster confirmed its intentions to participate at the 2022 contest on 20 October 2021 and would opt for a national final with several artists to select its 2022 entry.
Before Eurovision
was the national final organised by TVR in order to select its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022. The competition consisted of two shows: a semi-final featuring forty-five songs and a final featuring ten songs to be held between 9 February and 5 March 2022. Both shows took place at the TVR studios in Bucharest and were televised on TVR1, TVR HD, TVRi, as well as online via the broadcaster's streaming service TVR+ and YouTube. The two shows were also aired in Moldova via the channel TVR Moldova. An additional three shows, titled (Road to Turin) and hosted by Ilinca who represented , were aired on TVR1 between 5 and 7 February 2022 in order to give insight on the competing acts.
Competing entries TVR opened a submission period for artists and composers to submit their entries between 26 November 2021 and 19 December 2021. The broadcaster received 94 submissions within the submission deadline. A jury panel consisting of (singer), (opera singer, actress), (singer, producer), Cristian Faur (composer, producer) and (composer, conductor) reviewed the received submissions on 21 and 22 December 2021, with each juror on the committee rating each song between 1 (lowest) and 10 (highest) based on criteria such as the melodic harmony and structure of the song, the orchestral arrangement, originality and stylistic diversity of the composition and sound and voice quality. After the combination of the jury votes, the top 45 entries that scored the highest, one per artist that entered with more than one song, were selected for the national final. The competing entries were announced on 23 December 2021. Among the selected competing artists are Ciro de Luca, who represented as part of Todomondo, and Cezar Ouatu, who previously represented . Live performances of the competing entries were filmed at the TVR Studio 3 in Bucharest between 19 and 21 January 2022 and released online via YouTube on 5 February 2022.
On 28 December 2021, TVR announced that "" performed by E-an-na would also participate in the competition following a successful appeal made by the performers. "Best of Me" performed by Alex Parker, Erik Frank and Bastien was withdrawn from the competition on the same day and replaced with Parker and Bastien's second song "All This Love". "Hypnotized" performed by Barbara Tešija, was withdrawn from the competition on 5 February 2022. On 9 February, "That Way" performed by Fabi was withdrawn from the semi-final due to Fabi testing positive for COVID-19.
Shows
Semi-final The semi-final took place over two rounds between 9 and 12 February 2022. In the first round, forty-five songs competed and twenty qualified to the second round. A jury panel first selected fifteen songs to advance. The remaining thirty entries then faced a public online vote which took place on the Eurovision Romania Facebook page on 9 and 10 February 2022 which determined an additional five qualifiers. The twenty qualifying entries were announced on 10 February 2022 during the TVR evening news broadcast. In the second round which took place on 12 February 2022 and hosted by Anca Mazilu and Bogdan Stănescu with Ilinca hosting segments from the green room, a jury panel selected ten songs to qualify to the final. The members of the jury panel that voted during the semi-final were: (singer), (opera singer, actress), (singer, producer), Cristian Faur (composer, producer) and (composer, conductor).
+ First round9–10 February 2022 Artist Song Songwriter(s) Votes Place Result Aldo Blaga "Embers" 1,42311 Advanced Alex Parker and Bastien "All This Love" 45331 Advanced Alexa "Hoodies and Cold Nights" 86320 Alina Amon "Without You" Alina Amon98516 Ana "Youngster" Ana Maria Lazăr38035 Andra Oproiu "Younique" 1,8607 Advanced Andrea Stocchino "" 50228 Andrei Petruș "Take Me" 1,6508 Advanced Aris "" 1,11013 Advanced Ayona "Let Me Come to You" Marius Cobianu25438 Bogdan Dumitraș "Sign" Alex Luft44432 Carmen Trandafir "" 58824 Cezar Ouatu "For Everyone" 59823 Advanced Ciro de Luca "" 14742 Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucșa "" 1,4979 Advanced Dan Helciug "241" Dan Helciug1,27112 Dora Gaitanovici "Ana" Dora Gaitanovici3,2182 Advanced E-an-na "" 10,1241 Advanced Eliza G "The Other Half of Me" 56625 Advanced Eugenia Nicolae feat. Cazanoi Brothers "" 1,04215 Advanced Fabi "That Way" Fabian Ferrara445 Withdrew Forțele de muncă "" Florin Dumitrescu42033 Gabriel Basco "One Night" 2,1406 Advanced Giulia-Georgia "Find Your Way" Giulia-Georgia Beiliciu45730 Ivel "Neverending" Ivelin Trakiyski2544 Jessie "Regret" 25139 Kyrie Mendél "Hurricane" Kyrie Mendél14841 Advanced Letiția Moisescu "" 50029 Leyah "I'll Be Fine" Magdalena Marica53427 Mălina "Prisoner" 2,3365 Advanced Miryam "Top of the Rainbow" Ovidiu Anton90218 Møise "Guilty" 53726 Advanced Oana Tăbultoc "Utopia" 2,6294 Advanced Olivia Miheț "Fragile" 27437 Othello "You're Worthy" 32936 Outflow "Running in Circles" 1,43010 Petra "" Petronela Donciu25139 Advanced Roberta-Maria Popa "Indigo" 89619 Romeo Zaharia "Until the Fight Is Over" 91517 Seeya "Save Me" 7143 Sophia "Beautiful Lies" 41034 Stelian "Remember" 83922 Vanu "Never Give Up" 1,08414 Advanced Vizi "Sparrow" Vizi Imre2,7533 Advanced Wrs "" 84221 Advanced
+ Second round – 12 February 2022 Artist Song Result 1 Alex Parker and Bastien "All This Love" Qualifed 2 Aldo Blaga "Embers" 3 Petra "" Qualifed 4 Vizi "Sparrow" 5 Vanu "Never Give Up" Qualifed 6 Mălina "Prisoner" 7 Wrs "" Qualifed 8 Andrei Petruș "Take Me" Qualifed 9 Møise "Guilty" Qualifed 10 Gabriel Basco "One Night" Qualifed 11 Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucșa "" Qualifed 12 Oana Tăbultoc "Utopia" 13 Kyrie Mendél "Hurricane" Qualifed 14 Dora Gaitanovici "Ana" Qualifed 15 Cezar Ouatu "For Everyone" 16 Andra Oproiu "Younique" 17 E-an-na "" 18 Eugenia Nicolae feat. Cazanoi Brothers "" 19 Eliza G "The Other Half of Me" 20 Aris ""
Final The final took place on 5 March 2022, hosted by Eda Marcus and with Ilinca hosting segments from the green room. Ten songs competed and the winner, "" performed by Wrs, was determined by the combination of the votes from a five-member jury panel (5/6) and public televoting (1/6). Each juror voted by assigning scores from 1–8, 10 and 12 points to their preferred songs, with the juries awarding 290 points in total. The viewer vote was assigned by dividing the votes received by each song by the number of votes of the song that gained the most viewer votes. This number was then multiplied by 12 and rounded to two decimal places. For example, if song A received the most viewer votes and song B received 10% of song A's votes, then song A would be awarded 12 televoting points and song B would be awarded 1.2 televoting points. The members of the jury panel that voted during the final were: (singer), (opera singer, actress), (singer, producer), Cristian Faur (composer, producer) and (composer, conductor).
In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the interval acts featured performances by Jamala, who won Eurovision for , performing her winning song "1944", as well as seven 2022 Eurovision entrants: Intelligent Music Project (), Zdob și Zdub and Frații Advahov (), Vladana (), Andrea (), Ronela Hajati (), We Are Domi (), and Stefan ().
+ Final – 5 March 2022 Artist Song Jury Televote Total Place VotesPoints 1 Andrei Petruș "Take Me"118072.5913.599 2 Alex Parker and Bastien "All This Love"274291.3828.387 3 Gabriel Basco "One Night"351,0483.3738.374 4 Vanu "Never Give Up"346762.1736.175 5 Petra ""344121.3235.326 6 Møise "Guilty"105851.8811.8810 7 Cream, Minodora and Diana Bucșa ""137642.4515.458 8 Kyrie Mendél "Hurricane"466412.0648.062 9 Dora Gaitanovici "Ana"323,73712443 10 Wrs ""483,49711.2359.231
+ Detailed jury votesSong scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" scope="col" Total 1 "Take Me" 1113511 2 "All This Love"5456727 3 "One Night"73671235 4 "Never Give Up"464101034 5 ""61285334 6 "Guilty"3231110 7 ""2522213 8 "Hurricane"1010108846 9 "Ana"8774632 10 ""1281212448
Ratings + Viewing figures by show Show Date Viewing figures Nominal Share Final 197,0002.6%
Promotion Wrs made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "" as the Romanian Eurovision entry. On 26 March, Wrs performed during the Barcelona Eurovision Party, which was held at the Sala Apolo venue in Barcelona, Spain and hosted by Sharonne and Giuseppe Di Bella. On 3 April, Wrs performed during the London Eurovision Party, which was held at the Hard Rock Hotel in London, United Kingdom and hosted by Paddy O'Connell and SuRie. On 7 April, Wrs performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Menora Mivtachim Arena in Tel Aviv, Israel. On 9 April, Wrs performed during the Eurovision in Concert event which was held at the AFAS Live venue in Amsterdam, Netherlands and hosted by Cornald Maas and Edsilia Rombley. On 16 April, Wrs performed during the PrePartyES 2022 event which was held at the Sala La Riviera venue in Madrid, Spain and hosted by Ruth Lorenzo.
At Eurovision