Czech Republic

For many years the Czech Republic seemed reluctant to join the Eurovision Song Contest family. While neighbours Poland and Slovakia first entered the competition in the mid 1990s, Czech television finally made their contest debut in Helsinki in 2007 having expressed interest and then withdrawing a couple of years earlier. The Czech debut entry, by heavy metal band Kabat did very poorly in 2007, scoring only a single point and finishing last in the Helsinki sem-final.

This year Czech television once again went for a national final with a public televote to choose its entry for Belgrade, but the result could not have been musically much different from last year's song as the pop dance song "Have Some Fun" performed by Tereza Kerndlová won the ticket to Belgrade.

Ten songs competed in the second Czech Eurovision selection which was held on January 26th at Výstavište venue in Prague. Voting was limited to SMS texts and only the winner was announced. However, for the second year in a row, the Czech result was the subjecrt of some controversy. In 2007, it was felt that opening the voting a couple of weeks before the final, gave an unfair advantage to performers with a large fanbase. This year private Czech television channel claimed that Tereza Kerndlová's victory was influenced by Icom, a company who allegedly told all employees that they had to vote continuously by SMS. The claim was that an extra 15,000 SMS votes were cast by the company's employees, changing the result of the competition. However national broadcaster stated that they saw no problem with the voting procedure and quickly confirmed the victory of "Have Some Fun" and stated that there was no question over Tereza Kerndlová's participation in Eurovision.

Tereza Kerndlová was born on 6th October 1986 in the city of Brno, the daughter of swing singer Láda Kerndl, and since her youth she has been sailing around Europe accompanying her musician father on boats since she was two and a half years old.

As a singer in her own right Tereza was in the choir of Iva Bittová for five years and at the age of eight she began performing with her father and his orchestra, Jazz Friends going on to work with well-known Czech big bands. She sang with her father on eight of his CDs for which they have received several gold and platinum discs.

As a dancer Tereza has also competed in step dancing competitions for five years and is the six-times winner of the Czech title and she has won the European Championships and came sixth in the World Championships. Tereza has also been been providing the voice tracks for films and television series for six years and has been heard in over 200 shows.

In 2000 Tereza was approached when the girl band Black Milk was formed. In June 2001 together with Tereza Černochová and Helena Zeťová recorded the CD "Modrej Dým" (Blue Smoke). In 2002 they won the Český Slavík (Czech Nightingale) award for best new band as well as the Akademie award, the next year they recorded their second CD "Sedmkrát" (Seven Times). Both CDs won platinum awards for sales.

In the spring of 2005 Tereza left Black Milk to start her solo album "Orchidej" (Orchids). For a year Tereza was the face for the famous Maybelline brand. She also did a photo shoot for the calendar of the Balmain company, with whom she works.

On the 5th of November 2007, Tereza released her second solo album "Have Some Fun". The album was recorded in Belgium with producer Stan Šimor. A number of well-known musicians contributed to the record, amongst them, Gordon Pogoda who wrote one of the songs for the global hit series "Sex and the City". Tereza decided to enter the title track of the album in the Czech Republic’s national final for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 and she went on to become the country's second Eurovision entrant.

For the second year in a row, the Czech Republic is among the bookmakers' rank outsiders to win the contest and fan polls also suggest that qualification for the final is unlikely.