Jane Bogaert

Biography

Switzerland was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 with the song "La vita cos'è?", written by Bernie Staub and Thomas Marin, and performed by Jane Bogaert. The Swiss participating broadcaster, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), returned to the contest after a one-year absence following its relegation from 1999 as one of the six entrants with the least average points over the preceding five contests, and selected its entry through the national final Eurosong 2000. Six entries performed during the national final on 29 January 2000 where a combination of jury voting and public voting selected "La vita cos'è?" performed by Jane Bogaert as the winner. Switzerland competed in the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 13 May 2000. Performing during the show in position 16, Switzerland placed twentieth out of the 24 participating countries, scoring 14 points.

== Background ==

Prior to the 2000 Contest, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Switzerland forty-two times since its first entry in 1956. It won that first edition of the contest with the song "Refrain" performed by Lys Assia. Its second victory was achieved in 1988 with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi" performed by Canadian singer Céline Dion. In 1998, it placed last failing to earn any points with the song "Lass ihn" performed by Gunvor. As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, SRG SSR organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. The broadcaster has selected its entry for the contest through both national finals and internal selections in the past. Between 1994 and 1997, the Swiss entry was internally selected for the competition. In 1998, the broadcaster opted to organize a national final in order to select its entry, a selection procedure that continued for its 2000 entry.

== Before Eurovision ==

=== Eurosong 2000 ===

The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) held a national final to select its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2000. Over 100 entries were submitted to the three divisions of SRG SSR — Swiss-German and Romansh broadcaster Schweizer Fernsehen der deutschen und rätoromanischen Schweiz (SF DRS), Swiss-French broadcaster Télévision suisse romande (TSR), and Swiss-Italian broadcaster Televisione Svizzera di lingua italiana (TSI) — following a submission period for interested artists and composers. Eligible songs were required to have been composed by songwriters from Switzerland. The selection process took place in three stages before the finalists and ultimately the winner were selected. The first stage of the competition included SF DRS, TSR and TSI each evaluating the submissions they received. A total of 30 candidates were selected for the second stage, which took place in November 1999 and involved a jury panel consisting of music and media professionals selecting six artists and songs to proceed to the third stage, the televised national final, where the winning artist and song was selected to represent Switzerland in Stockholm. TSI staged Eurosong 2000 on 29 January 2000 at 20:40 CET from the Discoteca Prince of the Lugano Casino. It was hosted by Matteo Pelli and televised on SF 2 with commentary in German by Sandra Studer, TSI 1, and TSR 1 with commentary in French by Jean-Marc Richard.

==== Final ==== The six candidate songs in contention to represent Switzerland were performed during the national final and the combination of two televoting regions (2/3) and the votes of an expert jury (1/3) selected "La vita cos'è?" performed by Jane Bogaert as the winner. Among the members of the jury were Jacques Huwiler (journalist TSR) and Carol Rich (who represented Switzerland in 1987). The televotes of Italian-speaking Switzerland (TSI) were not included in the final result due to a collapse of the voting lines in the region, while the jury votes as well as the televotes of German-speaking Switzerland (DRS) and French-speaking Switzerland (TSR) were wrongly presented during the show due to technical problems; the results were revised shortly after.

== At Eurovision ==