Poland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with the song "For Life" written and performed by Isis Gee. The Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) organised the national final Piosenka dla Europy 2008 in order to select the Polish entry for the 2008 contest in Belgrade, Serbia. The national final took place on 23 February 2008 and featured twelve entries. "For Life" performed by Isis Gee was selected as the winner after gaining the most points following the combination of votes from a four-member jury panel and a public vote.
Poland was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 20 May 2008. Performing during the show in position 10, "For Life" was announced among the top 10 entries of the second semi-final and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 14 May. This marked the first time that Poland qualified to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest from a semi-final since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004. It was later revealed that Poland placed tenth out of the 19 participating countries in the semi-final with 42 points. In the final, Poland performed in position 10 and placed twenty-fourth out of the 25 participating countries, scoring 14 points.
Background
Prior to the 2008 Contest, Poland had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest twelve times since its first entry in 1994. Poland's highest placement in the contest, to this point, has been second place, which the nation achieved with its debut entry in 1994 with the song "To nie ja!" performed by Edyta Górniak. Poland has only, thus far, reached the top ten on one other occasion, when Ich Troje performing the song "Keine Grenzen – Żadnych granic" finished seventh in 2003. Between 2005 and 2006, Poland failed to qualify from the semi-final round, once again failing to qualify to the final in 2007 with their entry "Time to Party" performed by the Jet Set.
The Polish national broadcaster, Telewizja Polska (TVP), broadcasts the event within Poland and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. TVP confirmed Poland's participation in the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest on 8 November 2007. Since 2006, TVP organised televised national finals that featured a competition among several artists and songs in order to select the Polish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, a selection procedure that continued for their 2008 entry.
Before Eurovision
Piosenka dla Europy 2008
Piosenka dla Europy 2008 was the national final organised by TVP in order to select the Polish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. The show took place on 23 February 2008 at the Studio 5 of TVP in Warsaw, hosted by Katarzyna Sowińska and Radosław Brzózka. A combination of public televoting and jury voting selected the winner. The show was broadcast on TVP1 and TVP Polonia as well as streamed online at the broadcaster's website tvp.pl. The national final was watched by 2.7 million viewers in Poland with a market share of 26%.
Competing entries
TVP opened a submission period for interested artists and songwriters to submit their entries between 30 November 2007 and 2 January 2008. Only artists that had either released an album or single with national radio airplays, had competed in at least one professional song contest or music festival at a national level, or had a valid contract with a record company or a professional concert agency were eligible to compete. The broadcaster received 100 submissions at the closing of the deadline. A nine-member selection committee selected ten entries from the received submissions to compete in the national final, while TVP selected an additional three entries to compete as wildcards. The selection committee consisted of Piotr Klatt (musician, songwriter, journalist and music producer at TVP and artistic director of the Opole Festival), Paweł Sztompkę (journalist, music critic and editorial director of music at Polish Radio), Artur Orzech (Eurovision commentator, radio and television journalist and presenter), Magda Czapińska (songwriter), Zuzanna Łapicka (Head of Entertainment of TVP1), Agata Krysiak (editor at the Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry), Ryszard Poznakowski (singer and composer), Robert Obcowski (composer and producer) and Tomasz Deszczyński (President of OGAE Poland). The selected entries were announced on 7 January 2008, while the wildcards were announced on 8 February 2008. Among the competing artists was Sandra Oxenryd, who represented Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006.