LVT, the Latvian broadcaster have revealed in detail, the public voting for the four rounds of the Supenova. Whilst it had always been assumed that Justs was the likely winner, the voting patterns reveals that his win in Latvia was not by the greatest margin. Viewers were able to vote online and by SMS.

In week one, Justs won the on-line and  televoting by a clear margin. The jury sent through the public’s third and fourth choices to the semi final.

Week One	February 7 2016	On-Line	Televoting	Total
Justs	Heartbeat	2,465	2,715	5,180
Catalepsia	Damnation	831	1,505	2,336
Ivo Grīsniņš Grīslis	We Are the Light	649	1,206	1,855
Marta Grigale	Choices	582	898	1,480
Samanta Tina	We Live For Love	443	1,003	1,446
ElectroFolk	Miracle Drums	223	556	779
Edvards Grieze	New Day	199	288	487
Rūta Dūduma	Being a Friend	77	232	309
Sabīne Berezina	My Inspiration	72	224	296
Paula Dukure	Look in the Mirror	40	124	164

Week two saw Marcus Riva win both the on-line and televoting, while MyRadiantU and Samanta Tina had the on-line and televoting scores reversed. Nonetheless the top 4 public favourites were sent to the semi final.

Week Two	February 14 2016	On-line	Televoting	Total
Markus Riva	I Can	1,145	1,131	2,276
MyRadiantU	We Will Be Stars	1,092	888	1,980
Samanta Tina	The Love Is Forever	571	1,029	1,600
Marta Ritova	Not From This World”	642	863	1,505
Dvines	Set It on Fire	674	720	1,394
Mārtiņš Ruskis	Still Holding Stars	223	798	1,021
Iluta Alsberga	On Hold	418	537	955
Crow Mother	Demons	236	368	604
Miks Dukurs	Paradise	279	251	530
Madara Grēgere	You and I	152	259	411

In the third week, the top two public voted songs went through to the final, but the jury chose to ignore the public’s third favourite, sending Markus Riva home and keeping  Marta Ritova instead. The juries choices from week one, did not go down well with the public and came bottom of the third week table. Samanta Tina withdrew herself from the competition.

Week 3 Semi Final	February 21 2106	On-lIne	Televoting	Total
Justs	Heartbeat	3,084	2,316	5,400
Catalepsia	Damnation	1,284	2,101	3,385
Markus Riva	I Can	1,212	1,697	2,909
MyRadiantU	We Will Be Stars	1,311	1,580	2,891
Marta Ritova	Not From This World	944	1,538	2,482
Ivo Grīsniņš Grīslis	We Are the Light	518	711	1,229
Marta Grigale	Choices	336	525	861

In the final week, which sent Justs to Sweden, Catalepsia won the televoting but were beaten by on-line voting. At first glance it would appear that an international public sent Justs to the Eurovision Song Contest, but it has since been confirmed by LTV, that it was free for the Latvian public to vote on-line and many did.

Final	February 28 2016	On-line	Televoting	Total
Justs	Heartbeat	8,995	11,730	20,725
Catalepsia	Damnation	5,393	13,521	18,914
MyRadiantU	We Will Be Stars	2,432	4,219	6,651
Marta Ritova	Not From This World	1,869	3,172	5,041

Latvia will perform in the first half of the second semi final with Australia, Belarus, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Serbia and Switzerland.

Latvia In The Eurovision Song Contest

Latvia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest, sixteen times, debuting in 2000, to a third place finish with Brainstorm and My Star. The following year they dropped to 18th place with Arnis Mednis and Too Much, which made them ineligible for the 2002 contest. However Portugal did not want to participate that year, so the slot was offered to Latvia, who accepted and sent Marie N with I Wanna, and they went and took first place.

From then on, it’s been a  bumpy ride for Latvia falling to 24th place with F.L.Y and Hello From Mars, in the year they hosted (2003), then failing to qualify the next year, but returning to 5th place in 2005 with Walters and Kazha and The War Is Not Over. In the subsequent years they received a 12th and two 16th places, before failing to qualify for six years in a row. Aminata fixed that in 2015 by placing 6th with Love Injected.

Latvia have performed 13 of their entries in English, and one time each in Latvian, Russian and Italian.

Below enjoy the highlights of Latvia’s recent contenders.