France: Good bye “Eurovision destination”

The French public broadcaster, France Televisions, confirmed recently before its intention not to host the “Destination Eurovision” show in 2020, which has been used for the last two years to mark the French representative at Eurovision. Instead, France’s choice of Rotterdam will be directly assigned this year.

According to information and sources from Le Parisien, including Alexandra Redde-Amiel, head of entertainment at France Télévisions, France 2 will not renew the Eurovision Destination format. At least two reasons seem to have led to this choice.

The reasons

First, Destination Eurovision had very low viewing rates compared to contest. Both in the process of appointing the French representative and especially in comparison to Eurovision itself, the TV shares were in the dark. In particular, the televised final of its national selection was three times smaller than the May 18 final in Tel Aviv.

The second reason is, according to Alexandra Redde-Amiel, the desire of French television to have complete control over the choice of artist to compete in Rotterdam in May.

“We want to control the process more, through direct outsourcing. That is what Spain and England will do this year. We will develop our strengths differently. We are thinking about several options. By changing our process, we hope to reach the Top 5 in 2020”

The process

The French public broadcaster has asked several French composers, as well as foreign producers for the first time, to submit their proposals on the song and artist that may represent France in the 65th edition of Eurovision.

Finally, according to the article, the representative of France and the song contesting will be formally presented in a special TV show broadcast in France 2. Although no details have been provided, it is very likely that such a presentation will held before the meeting of the Heads of Missions in mid-March 2020.

Bilal Hassani was the winner of the last Destination Eurovision and France’s representative at Eurovision 2019. He performed “Roi” on the stage of Tel Aviv and took 16th place with 105 points.