Serbia: Does the country’s public television’s interruption of the Eurovision broadcast violate EBU regulations?
The first semi-final of the 68th Eurovision Song Contest was completed yesterday, with ten countries qualifying for Saturday’s Grand Final. That being said, there have been a few unanticipated happenings last night. Particularly, the Serbian public broadcaster’s choice to interrupt the show’s broadcast has sparked dissatisfaction among the fans.
For twenty-five minutes, RTS switched the contest’s live broadcast from RTS 1 to RTS 2. The emergency news broadcast and, more especially, the country’s welcoming to Chinese President Xi Jinping were the reasons behind the TV schedule adjustment.
The fact that the television audience was unaware of the change has drawn criticism, as it meant that a sizable part of viewers missed Poland, Croatia, and Iceland‘s performances. In fact, the broadcast was interrupted during the Polish performance.
Since this goes against the notion of fair competition, concerns are raised about possible violations of the competition regulations. If the non qualifications of Poland and Iceland are connected to Serbia’s voting, the matter is anticipated to assume significant proportions.
As of yet, neither the RTS nor the EBU have released any formal statements. However, throughout the next few hours, developments on this issue are anticipated.
Serbia is represented by Teya Dora, with the song “Ramonda”, who defied the oddsmakers and won one of the ten tickets to Saturday’s final.
Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun to be the first to learn about the EBU and RTS’s reactions as well as all the updates regarding our favourite competition!
Source: eurovizija.rs
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This is such a non story. It’s people trying to find something unfair or a reason why they didn’t qualify.
Poland and Iceland were never predicted to qualify, based on the odds.
The 3rd country that they didn’t show on the main channel was Croatia, who are the bookies favourite. The total televotes may not be out but we all know Croatia got the most.
Also, Serbia probably voted for Croatia.
If one of the acts was Australia, then maybe, just maybe, could we say it was unfair as they were predicted to just make it compared to Serbia who were predicted to just fail to qualify.
I very much doubt anything will be decided was done to be malicious or unfair.
Based on the odds Poland was in 8th place to qualify with 82% . Check the facts!