The Spanish participating broadcaster, Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE), organised the national final Eurovisión 2009: El retorno in order to select its entry for the contest.

Ten entries ultimately qualified to compete in the televised final where an in-studio jury and a public televote selected "La noche es para mí" performed by Soraya as the winner.

Performing as the closing entry during the show in position 25, Spain placed twenty-fourth out of the 25 participating countries with 23 points.

They have also finished second four times, with "En un mundo nuevo" by Karina in 1971, "Eres tú" by Mocedades in 1973, "Su canción" by Betty Missiego in 1979, and "Vuelve conmigo" by Anabel Conde in 1995.

[3] Eurovisión 2009: El retorno was the national final organised by RTVE that took place at the Casino l'Aliança del Poblenou Theatre in Barcelona, hosted by Alaska and Miguel Serrano.

The votes of the expert jury and the public televote each created an overall ranking from which points from 1-8, 10 and 12 were distributed and assigned based on the number of competing songs in the respective show.

[16][17] The remaining entries were performed in front of the four in-studio jury members appointed by RTVE on 31 January 2009 during a live webcast audition at the Casino l'Aliança del Poblenou Theatre in Barcelona, presented by Vicky Bolaños and Adrián Lucas and broadcast on RTVE's official website, where an additional ten entries were selected for the national final.

In the first stage, twenty of the 26 applicants were revealed via RTVE's official website on 19 December 2008 and users had until 19 January 2009 to vote for their favourite candidates.

The twelve entries that qualified from the preceding three semi-finals competed and the winner, "La noche es para mí" performed by Soraya, was selected through the combination of votes of an in-studio jury (50%) and a public televote (50%).

[33][34] Soraya made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "La noche es para mí" as the Spanish Eurovision entry.

On 18 and 19 April, Soraya took part in promotional activities in Belgium and performed at the Place Sainte Catherine venue in Brussels.

[36] On 18 April, she performed during Eurovision Promo Concert event which was held at the Amsterdam Marcanti venue in Netherlands and hosted by Marga Bult and Maggie MacNeal.

[39] In addition to her international appearances, she performed during a Spanish Eurovision party, which took place at the La Boite club in Madrid on 3 April.

[48] The LED screens displayed nightclub-styled imagery including disco balls, projections of the lyrics from the song "Take me!"

This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.