2009 National Song Contest

Date:	12 December 2009
Presenters:	Jelena Jakupović Noah Kavanagh
Venue:	National Indoor Arena, Southport
Submissions:	1,077
Director:	Blake Underwood
Commentators:	Adam Portnoy (NCR-1) Eve Grosvenor (NCT Three)
Viewing figures:	~ 2,022,100
Voting:	50% Jury / 50% Televote & SMS
Televotes cast:	549,561
Interval act:	Riverdance
Winner:	"A Country Apart" Jake Dunigan
◄ 2008 • 2010 ►

The 2009 New Cambria National Song Contest was the sixth running of New Cambria Television's popular annual music competition. It took place over six successive Saturdays from 7 November to 12 December 2009. Preparations for the contest began in January 2009. A number of changes to the contest's format were introduced, including increasing the number of songs selected to participate and the way the finalists are selected.

Popular New Cambria comedian Brad Nivens was scheduled to co-present the Grand Final with NCT morning program hostess Jelena Jakupović, while journalist and writer Noah Kavanagh presented the Semi-Finals. However, Nivens's arrest for drink driving just five days before the final led to his being replaced with Kavanagh. In the Grand Final, Irish dance act Riverdance performed as part of their North American farewell tour. Blake Underwood directed the contest for the third time, having previously done so in 2006 and 2008.

In a close finish, twenty-five-year-old Jake Dunigan won the contest, scoring 181 with the song "A Country Apart." Selma Kljajić and James Skerritt finished second by a nine-point margin with the song "The Fire is Burning."

Contents 1 Logo and Theme 2 Venues 3 Format 3.1 Song Selection 3.2 Semi-Finals 3.3 Final 3.4 Grand Final Jury Members 3.5 International Jury Members 4 Entries 4.1 Returning Entrants 5 Grand Final Gala 5.1 Voting and Controversy 5.2 Final Scoreboard 5.2.1 Jury Scoresheet 5.3 Televoting 6 Semi-Finals 6.1 Wild Card

Logo and ThemeEdit

NCT commissioned proposals for the logo and theme to be used during the contest, and also opened up the selection process. The last date to submit logo designs was 20 March. NCT published some of the candidate entries received on its website, a few of which are shown below.

First Runner-Up

Second Runner-Up

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VenuesEdit

Construction on the National Indoor Arena, a new, state-of-the-art performance and sporting venue in Southport, was completed on 31 March 2009, and it was rumoured that the contest's Grand Final would be held there, rather than the Brock Carter Memorial Arena in Arvant, which has hosted every Grand Final since 2004. On 2 April 2009, NCT confirmed that the NIA would host the Grand Final, and the BCMA would host the Wild-Card Semi-Final.

While Grand Final's location is somewhat of a given, the venues of the four Semi-Finals were open to much more speculation. NCT announced the venues on 9 May 2009. The historic Rozenn Theatre in New Breizh is the only venue to never have hosted a NSC event before. In 2008, it underwent restoration to its original 1931 construction, and a renovation from a cinema to a stage theatre. With a seating capacity of only 720, the Rozenn is by far the smallest venue to ever host a NSC event.

Event	Date	Venue	City
First Semi-Final	7 November	John Cabot Concert Hall	The Settlement, Cavit Island
Second Semi-Final	14 November	Black Box Theatre	St. Saviour, Trinity County
Third Semi-Final	21 November	Rozenn Opera House	New Breizh, Stone County
Fourth Semi-Final	28 November	Averytown Municipal Forum	Averytown, Avery County
Wild Card Semi-Final	5 December	Brock Carter Memorial Arena	Arvant, St. George's County
Grand Final Gala	12 December	National Indoor Arena	Southport, Cape Bangor County

FormatEdit

On 30 January 2009, the 2009 edition's first press conference was held at television centre in Arvant. At the conference, the official rules were made public for the first time. The rules for the 2009 contest feature several fundamental changes to the format of the shows.

Song SelectionEdit

• The number of songs selected to compete in the contest was increased from 24 to 40, with ten songs in each semi-final.

Semi-FinalsEdit

• The jury comprised three music professionals who awarded the songs 10-1 points in descending order of preference. The song that earned the highest combined score received 10 points from the jury. The second-highest received 9 points, the third, 8 points and so on down to 1 point.
• The viewing public cast their votes via telephone or SMS. The song with the highest number of televotes received 10 points, the second-highest, 9 points, the third-highest, 8 points, the fourth and so on down to 1 point.
• The three songs with the highest combined jury and televote scores qualified for the Grand Final Gala. The fourth-, fifth- and sixth-placed songs in each Semi-Final received an invitation to compete in the Wild Card Semi-Final. The four lowest-ranked songs were eliminated from the competition.
• In the event two or more songs received the same score, preference was given to the song with the higher televote score.

FinalEdit

• The Grand Final Gala featured 15 songs:
  • Three from each of the four Semi-Finals;
  • Three from the Wild Card-Semi Final;
• An eleven-member jury panel provided 50% of the total scores in the Grand Final:
  • Ten of the jurors were local entertainment industry professionals.
  • The eleventh jury consisted of nine music professionals from all over the world.
• The jury members each awarded 10-1 points to their top 10 songs in descending order.
• The viewing public contributed 50% of the scores with their telephone and SMS votes. These votes were be totaled and assigned points equal to that of eleven juries. Thus, the favorite song from the televote received 110 points, and the tenth favorite received 11 points.

Grand Final Jury MembersEdit

Name and Occupation	Origin
Maura Ackerman, Vocal coach	New Breizh, New Cambria
David Blythe, Radio executive	Arvant, New Cambria
David Broome, Singer/Musician	St. Saviour, New Cambria
Kevin Cross, Songwriter	Nashville, United States
Travis Egan, TV presenter	Arvant, New Cambria
Penny Morrow, Composer/Choreographer	Southport, New Cambria
Amy Sedaris, Comedian/Actress	New York, United States
Alicia Toussaint, Record producer	Coventry, New Cambria
Amanda Young, Singer/Songwriter	Averytown, New Cambria
Steven Zane, Music critic	Talbot, New Cambria

International Jury MembersEdit

Name and Occupation	Origin
Jeanette de Chapeau, Singer	Paris, France
Marta Ellsworth, Composer/Musician	Melbourne, Australia
Nanne Grönvall, Singer	Stockholm, Sweden
Zoran Hadžić, Musician	Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Masaru Makota, Performance artist	Okinawa, Japan
Eivør Pálsdóttir, Singer/Songwriter	Syðrugøta, Faroe Islands
Eimear Quinn, Singer	Dublin, Ireland
Alejo Sandoval, Music critic	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Bastiaan Van Graan, TV presenter	Cape Town, South Africa

EntriesEdit

NCT accepted entries between 28 June and 7 August. A total of 1,077 songs were received, a new record and a 16% increase over the previous year.

Returning EntrantsEdit

Several performers in the 2009 contest's Semi-Finals have previously competed in the contest. They include:

• Kevin Altan (2005)
• Jacqueline Clayson (2006)
• Sarah Jađehe (2008)
• Dan Kagan (2008)
• Mađalo (2005)
• Emily Pearce (2008)
• Brian Trask (2004)
• Hillary Williams (2004)
• Micah Williams (2008)

Grand Final GalaEdit

The Grand Final was broadcast live at 8:00pm on Saturday, 12 December at the National Indoor Arena in Southport.

Voting and ControversyEdit

Due to the changes in how the votes are tallied, the voting sequence in 2009 was one of the most unpredictable to date. Four songs held the leading position during the announcement of the jury results. Despite being ignored by the international jury, Jacqueline Clayson's "Forgive" emerged as the clear front-runner after the first five sets of results. At the close of the jury vote, Clayson led on 90 points, with Amélie Bourque holding second on 82 points, and and Selma Kljajić and James Skerritt in third on 73 points.

With only the top three televoting results left to be announced, Bourque and "Laisser-nous croire" was in first place on 137 points. The televoters gave 88 points to Velocity, rocketing them from 7th to 1st place, and a final score of 158 points. The 99 points went to Kljajić and Skerrit, giving them a total of 172 points and the lead, which meant at least one of the two pre-contest favourites, Clayson's "Forgive" and Jake Dunigan's "A Country Apart" failed to receive any points from the televote at all. After a few tense moments, the 110 points were awarded to Dunigan, giving him 181 points and the victory. This left Clayson in disappointing 7th place.

The morning after the contest, the full televoting results were revealed, and it was discovered that Clayson's performance received a total of 12,659 votes, ranking 11th out of the 15 songs. Clayson's management accused the contest's organizers of rigging the results, and Clayson herself lambasted the contest in an interview with a Newfoundland radio station, then refused to appear on the contest's retrospective special, "Looking Back," which aired live the evening following the Grand Final. Of the 15 finalists, Clayson was the only one absent. Host Noah Kavanagh attempted to make light of her absence, and placed an empty chair on stage where Clayson was to sit had she attended.

In the weeks following the contest, several fellow performers made public statements about Clayson's sportsmanship and attitude during the Semi-Finals and Grand Final. Both Jake Dunigan and Selma Kljajić stated that Clayson refused to speak to either of them in the moments following Dunigan's victory, and she immediately left the green room area after the final votes were announced. In an interview with Radio 2, Dunigan said, "I thought it was very unsporting of her [...] as soon as the last set of points was announced, she got up and started to leave [the green room]. If the voting had gone the other way, and she had won, I would have gone over and shaken her hand." Kljajić stated in an interview with Cam' magazine that Clayson was frequently late to arrive during the rehearsals for the Grand Final, and unsuccessfully attempted to convince the producers to let her perform in the final position in the running order, rather than second-last as determined by the draw. Excepting the single interview with the Newfoundland radio station, in which her use of expletives was thrice censored, Clayson has refused requests for interviews regarding the contest.

The contest's organizing committee had initially refused to comment on the Clayson controversy until after the winner's promotional appearances were over. On 24 January, NCT released a statement that read:

The organizing committee was made aware of the situation regarding one of the finalists' dissatisfaction with her result shortly after the televoting results were published. NCT has reviewed the results collected from the independent televoting partner, and there is no evidence that they were miscounted, nor is there any evidence of vote-tampering. The results published by NCT and the scores announced by the spokesperson on the night of the Grand Final were both correct and accurate.

Final ScoreboardEdit

№	Song	Performer	Jury	Televote	Score	Rank
01	Goodbye, Love	Margaret Carroll	4		4	15
02	Laisser-nous croire	Amélie Bourque	82	55	137	4
03	Looking for You	Brian Trask	21	33	54	9
04	Completely	Kevin Altan	12		12	14
05	Ahet	Sarah Jađehe	50	77	127	5
06	Wrong or Right	James Clooney	23		23	12
07	Day After Day	Kenneth St. John	19	44	63	8
08	Meant to Be	Dan Kagan	7	11	18	13
09	A Country Apart	Jake Dunigan	71	110	181	1
10	Bez tebe	Hajrudin Ademović	36	66	102	6
11	Perdu dans l'infini	Serge Fortescue	20	22	42	10
12	The Way it Used to Be	Velocity	70	88	158	3
13	The Fire is Burning	Selma Kljajić & James Skerritt	73	99	172	2
14	Forgive	Jacqueline Clayson	90		90	7
15	Timeless	Aurora	27		27	11

Jury ScoresheetEdit

№	Song	Int'l	J1	J2	J3	J4	J5	J6	J7	J8	J9	J10	Total
01	Goodbye, Love	1				3							4
02	Laisser-nous croire	9	9	8	3	5	9	4	7	10	10	8	82
03	Looking for You	2	3	3	2			2	2	5		2	21
04	Completely			6	5							1	12
05	Ahet	6	2	9			8	8	5		9	3	50
06	Wrong or Right		6			4	1	6			6		23
07	Day After Day						2	3	1	4		9	19
08	Meant to Be			4	1						2		7
09	A Country Apart	8	5		8	10	5	9	6	9	4	7	71
10	Bez tebe	5	1		6	9		5	3	2	1	4	36
11	Perdu dans l'infini	3	4	2		1	3		4	3			20
12	The Way it Used to Be	4	8	7	10	8	7	1	8	7	5	5	70
13	The Fire is Burning	10	7	5	4	7	4	7	10	6	7	6	73
14	Forgive		10	10	9	6	10	10	9	8	8	10	90
15	Timeless	7		1	7	2	6			1	3		27

TelevotingEdit

№	Song	Votes	Points
01	Goodbye, Love	8,709
02	Laisser-nous croire	31,062	55
03	Looking for You	16,048	33
04	Completely	7,853
05	Ahet	76,237	77
06	Wrong or Right	8,926
07	Day After Day	23,028	44
08	Meant to Be	14,994	11
09	A Country Apart	109,266	110
10	Bez tebe	39,096	66
11	Perdu dans l'infini	15,642	22
12	The Way it Used to Be	88,380	88
13	The Fire is Burning	90,701	99
14	Forgive	12,659
15	Timeless	6,960

Semi-FinalsEdit

See Article: 2009 New Cambria National Song Contest Semi-Finals

The Semi-Final rounds were held on 7, 14, 21 and 28 November.

Semi-Final One	Semi-Final Two	Semi-Final Three	Semi-Final Four
Sirens	N'avoue jamais	Ask Me	Enchanted
Deeper and Deeper	Ahet	Always Thinking of You	Forgive
The Island	Meant to Be	Alone	Wrong or Right
Bez Tebe	Night of My Dreams	Đanek Jahvija	A Country Apart
The Way it Used to Be	Come Closer	Looking for You	Get Crazy
Goodbye, Love	Child of Creation	Un Monde Sans Musique	No One Knows
Words of Love	Dance with Me	Completely	One Small Step
Laisser-nous croire	The Fire is Burning	Never Again	Point of no Return
Insomnia	Breathe Out	Timeless	Ehvija Đa
Day After Day	Perdu dans l'infini	Tonight is the Night	Along for the Ride

Wild CardEdit

The Wild Card Semi-Final was held on 5 December at the Brock Carter Memorial Arena in Arvant.

Wild Card Semi-Final
Bez Tebe
The Island
Along for the Ride
N'avoue jamais
Ehvija Đa
Always Thinking of You
Point of No Return
Breathe Out
Perdu dans l'infini
Ask Me
The Way it Used to Be
Alone

New Cambria National Song Contest
Editions	2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 • 2008 • 2009 • 2010 • 2011
Winners	Kyle Mason • Sarah-Anne Kerrigan • Cadence in Time • David Broome • Karen Johns • Jake Dunigan • Glenna St. Martin
Runners-Up	Gretchen Carlson • Juliet Walrond • Jacqueline Clayson • Aimée Ferrer • Sarah Jađehe • Selma Kljajić & James Skerritt • Cadence in Time
Looking Back	National Song Contest: Looking Back • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 • 2008 • 2009 • 2010
Other	New Cambria Public Broadcasting • CamCom • Melodifestivalen