Malta: Submission window for MESC 2023 is now open!

Earlier today PBS, Malta’s national broadcaster, opened the submission window for the Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2023 (MESC).

With the submission window for the MESC now open those interested in representing Malta in the contest must apply on the official PBS Eurovision site. Some rules of the selection are as follows:

  • All performers must be at least 16 years old by May 2023.
  • Performers must have Maltese nationality while the Songwriters and composers can be of any nationality.
  • An artist may submit multiple songs to the selection.
  • Songs must not have been released or publicly performed before October 15 2022.
  • Songs must not be longer than three minutes.

You can find the application form here.

Through the selection process, a jury will choose the 40 songs that will compete at Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2023. In each quarterfinals, 10 songs will compete with 6 of them being able to progress through the Semi-Final. At all the shows, the voting will consist of both jury voting and public televote.

The dates of MESC 2023 are as follows:

  • Quarterfinal One – January 13th
  • Quarterfinal Two – January 20th
  • Quarterfinal Three – January 27th
  • Quarterfinal Four – February 3rd
  • Semi-Final – February 9th
  • Grand Final – February 11th

Emma Muscat was the winner of MESC 2022 with the song “Out of Sight”. In the end she represented Malta in Eurovision 2022 with the song “I Am what I Am” ending up in 16th place of the Second Semi-final:

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Maltese participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, in Liverpool!

Junior Eurovision 2022: Listen to Malta’s song for the contest!

There are four countries that have chosen their representatives for Junior Eurovision 2022. The last of these countries is Malta, whose national final, MJESC 2022, came to an end and the winner was Gaia Gambuzza.

The national final took place in the PBS Studios, with no live audience. The young artists performed their songs in front of the juries, who determined 75% of the final result, while the other 25% came from the public vote.

The national final took place with 16 songs competing:

  • Emma Kate Formosa – “Bounce”
  • Gaia Gambuzza – “Diamonds in the Skies”
  • Shanzay Mangion – “Heartbeat”
  • Kaylyn Mallia – “Here I Am”
  • Aaliyah Cassar – “Infinity”
  • Rih and Bri – “Karma”
  • Cassidy Gauci – “Light Up”
  • Naomi Busuttil – “Little Cheeky”
  • Cesca Galea – “See the Invisible”
  • Kayleen Mercicea – “Shooting Star”
  • Andrea Camilleri – “Spark”
  • Ma Girlz – “Stereo”
  • Charelle Micallef – “The Extra Miles”
  • Kensley Ciappara – “Tliet Xadini”
  • Isis Jade Miller – “Unbreakable”
  • Geneve Dimech – “With You By My Side”

The winner of the national final was Gaia Gambuzza with the song “Diamonds in the Skies” and thus, she is going to represent Malta in Junior Eurovision 2022, scheduled to take place this December in Armenia! The song is entirely in English.

Listen to “Diamonds in the Sky” by Gaia Gambuzza for Junior Eurovision 2022:

Junior Eurovision 2022: 16 countries will take part in the contest in Yerevan!

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) alongside the Armenian public broadcaster (AMPTV), announced that 16 countries are going to take part in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022, which is scheduled to take place in Yerevan, on Sunday, December 11.

https://youtu.be/NvgeXx_BUV4

The 16 countries that will travel to Yerevan in December are:

  • 🇦🇱 Albania (RTSH)
  • 🇦🇲 Armenia (AMPTV)
  • 🇫🇷 France (France TV)
  • 🇬🇪 Georgia (GPB)
  • 🇮🇪 Ireland (TG4)
  • 🇮🇹 Italy (Rai)
  • 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan (Khabar Agency)
  • 🇲🇹 Malta (PBS)
  • 🇳🇱 Netherlands (AVROTROS)
  • 🇲🇰 North Macedonia (MKRTV)
  • 🇵🇱 Poland (TVP)
  • 🇵🇹 Portugal (RTP)
  • 🇷🇸 Serbia (RTS)
  • 🇪🇸 Spain (TVE)
  • 🇺🇦 Ukraine (UA:PBC)
  • 🇬🇧 United Kingdom (BBC)

The number of countries that will take part in this year’s contest is reduced, compared to last year, since Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Germany and Russia will not return to the contest, while the United Kingdom returns after a 16 years of absence.

What is more, alongside the final list of competitions, the Armenian public broadcaster announced the slogan of this year’s contest which is: “Spin the Magic”.

Martin Österdahl, Executive Supervisor for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, is excited about the show’s return:

“We’re delighted to be welcoming talented young artists from 16 countries this year to Yerevan for the 20th Junior Eurovision Song Contest. It’s exciting to be returning to the Armenian capital for the first time in over a decade to “Spin The Magic” on this special anniversary – and welcoming back the United Kingdom to the competition, our host country for Eurovision 2023. There’s so much energy, passion and creativity from our colleagues at AMPTV and we can’t wait to see a spectacular show in December.”

Armenia will host the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022 after Maléna’s win with the song “Qami Qami”:

https://youtu.be/IEqRlYCxPHw

Stay tuned in Eurovisionfun for everything new regarding the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2022!

Source:

Eurovision 2023: National broadcaster participation window closing today!

The national broadcasters from the countries having an active EBU membership, have a deadline until today (15/9), in order to confirm their participation in the 67th Eurovision Song Contest.

We might not know the city at United Kingdom that we are going to travel to for Eurovision 2023 yet, but today is the deadline for the national broadcasters-EBU members to confirm their participation in the contest.

Until October 11th, according to the rules, the possibility of withdrawal is provided without the imposition of a fine. From this date on, the broadcasters that applied for participating and are willing to withdraw, are going to face the imposition of a fine, which is varying, depending on the time of withdrawal (before or after the semi-finals draw etc.).

31 countries, with one way or another, have announced their will to participate in Eurovision 2023. Among them there’s Greece, and Cyprus too. Those countries are:

  • Albania
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Cyprus
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Georgia
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Iceland
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Malta
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • San Marino
  • Serbia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • The Netherlands
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom

The number from the countries above is expected to grow, because nine countries that participated in this year’s contest, haven’t clarified their intentions yet. Those are:

  • Armenia
  • Azerbaijan
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia
  • Czech Republic
  • Moldova
  • Montenegro
  • North Macedonia
  • Slovenia

There’s always a chance, although slight, for a country to return or for another one to debut. The participating countries and their exact number will be confirmed through EBU’s official announcement. The respective announcement for Eurovision 2022 was made on October 20th.

 

Malta: PBS Announces Various Dates for Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2023!

The Maltese national broadcaster, PBS, confirmed that the country will participate in Eurovision 2023. In parallel, it announced that the song submissions will be opened at October 17th until October 31st. The participants selected for MESC will be announced in November.

Through the selection process, a jury will choose the 40 songs that will compete at Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2023. Quarterfinals will remain, and in each one 10 songs will compete with 6 of them being able to progress through the Semi-Final. At all the shows, the voting will consist of both jury voting and public televote.

The announcement of dates did not stop there, as PBS also published the dates for the MESC shows. The dates of the shows are the following:

  • Quarterfinal One – January 13th
  • Quarterfinal Two – January 20th
  • Quarterfinal Three – January 27th
  • Quarterfinal Four – February 3rd
  • Semi-Final – February 9th
  • Grand Final – February 11th

Full rules can be read here

In Eurovision 2022 Malta was represented by Emma Muscat and the song “I Am What I Am”, finishing 16th at the Second Semi-Final. Initially, Emma Muscat won MESC 2022 with the song “Out of Sight” but later decided to use the right given by the MESC rules to change the winning song. In the end, she represented Malta with “I Am What I Am”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFCFM5qtvms&ab_channel=EurovisionSongContest

Source: Eurovoix, PBS

Eurovision 2023: The new season has just started!

For many, including us on Eurovisionfun, Eurovision never ends! However, September 1st is a special date. Any song that is released after that date is eligible to be chosen to take part in the next years contest. Therefore, any song from now on can be a potential Eurovision 2o23 entry!

What we know so far

After the landslide victory of Ukraine and Kalush Orchestra in Turin, EBU has already announced that due to the ongoing war since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the contest will be held in the United Kingdom instead, to ensure safety of everyone involved in the production.

During August, BBC announced a shortlist of seven cities that will compete to host the contest next year, while the deadline to submit the finalized bids is set for September 8th. BBC and EBU representatives will visit these cities to inspect the facilities and discuss with local authorities on the proposed bids.

Around late September/early October and after there is potentially a dialogue with the British government, BBC and EBU will announce the Eurovision 2023 hosting city.

The shortlisted cities are:

  • Birmingham
  • Glasgow
  • Leeds
  • Liverpool
  • Manchester
  • Newcastle
  • Sheffield

Betting odds are every year a topic of discussion within and outside the Eurovision fandom. As of the time of writing, the odds about which city will host Eurovision 2023 predict Glasgow as the hosting city, with 65% chances, indicating a one-horse race for the hosting of the contest next year.

Participating countries

As of now, 27 countries have officially or unofficially confirmed that they will take part in Eurovision 2023. These are:

  • Albania
  • Austria
  • Belgium
  • Cyprus
  • Denmark
  • Estonia
  • Finland
  • France
  • Georgia
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Iceland
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Netherlands
  • Norway
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • San Marino
  • Serbia
  • Spain
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom

Within the next months more countries are expected to confirm their participation, with the goal to have 40 countries as in 2022. Russia and Belarus are not eligible to take part in the contest, since their broadcasters are not EBU members anymore.

Certain countries have already announced that they will not take part in Eurovision 2023, with some of them extending their long-lasting absence from the contest. Andorra, Monaco, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Maroco and Hungary will not be present in the 67th Eurovision Song Contest, while Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina are yet to announce their plans but the chances to see them returning are low for various reasons.

Until March 14th the announcement of all the entries

It won’t be before March 14th until we know all competing artists and entries for 2023, since on that day is the meeting of the Head of Delegations where all entries will be officially submitted. However, Israel has already selected its artist and its Noa Kirel, a local superstar with many of her songs conquering the charts.

Albania and Ukraine will be the next to select their entries before the end of 2022, unless there is a surprise as with Czech Republic last year.

Join us on the road to Eurovision 2023!

Eurovisionfun will bring you Eurofun-tastic news throughout the season, while you should be ready for exclusives and surprises! Our 24/7 coverage in Greek and English includes articles, reactions, discussions and many more!

Don’t forget to follow us on our social media, we are always online and we love interacting with you! You can check us out on:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

TikTok

Spotify

 

Let the Eurovision 2023 season begin! Stay tuned to Eurovisionfun!

 

 

 

The most successful Eurovision countries in the 20s!

Eurovision is heading to the third decade of the 21st century and it has clearly changed not only in comparison with the past, but also with the recent years. In this article we investigate how countries scored during the first 2 years of the 20s, as well as their average score.

As you can see below, we cannot identify a group of 5-6 performing performing always well, as it used to happen the last years. Only a few countries are consistently doing well, despite the fact that the scores studied are only of the last 2 years. Tougher competition, the success of the contest on social media (TikTok had a business partnership with the contest this year featuring exclusive clips of the first rehearsals on the platform), as well as the high interest by record labels are only some of the reasons why it is harder to perform consistently well, since entries are of higher lever than the past.

Lets see in detail the average score of the countries during this decade:

Country        2022   2021    Average

  1. Ukraine           1          5             3
  2. Italy                 6          1            3,5
  3. Greece             8         10            9
  4. Sweden           4         14             9
  5. Russia             –           9             9
  6. Switzerland    17        3             10
  7. Moldova          7        13            10
  8. Serbia              5         15            10
  9. Portugal          9         12           10.5
  10. Lithuania       14         8             11
  11. France            24         2             13
  12. Spain               3         24           13.5
  13. Iceland          23          4            13.5
  14. Finland          21          6            13.5
  15. United Kingdom 2     26           14
  16. Norway           10         18            14
  17. The Netherlands 11     23          17
  18. Azerbaijan     16          20            18
  19. Belgium          19         19             19
  20. Armenia         20          –              20
  21. Malta               35          7             21
  22. Estonia           13         31             22
  23. Poland            12         33            22.5
  24. Cyprus            29         16            22.5
  25. Romania        18          28            23
  26. Israel              30          17           23.5
  27. Albania          28          21           24.5
  28. Australia        15          34           24.5
  29. Bulgaria         38          11           24.5
  30. Germany        25          25            25
  31. Croatia           26          27           26.5
  32. St. Marino     33          22           27.5
  33. Czech Republic 22     36             29
  34. Denmark        31         29             30
  35. North Macedonia 27 35             31
  36. Austria           36         30             33
  37. Ireland           34         37            35.5
  38. Latvia             32         39            35.5
  39. Slovenia         40        32              36
  40. Montenegro   37         –                37
  41. Georgia           39       38             38.5

As you can see in the table above, there are very few countries where the average of their positions in these two years is below 10. This proves how difficult it has become to be in the top ten. It is even more difficult to have continuous results within top 10, since only three countries have achieved this, Ukraine, Italy and Greece!

It is evident that Italy and Ukraine are the two powerhouses of the competition for this decade (so far). Sweden remains high on the list, but far from the first place it was in the last decade. Greece is recovering dynamically since it is in third place, when in the previous decade it was out of the 20s. Cyprus gets lower scores year by year, unfortunately making us believe that 2018 was just a coincidence and is currently in 24th place!

Regardless of personal taste and opinions, the numbers speak themselves and is clear that Ukraine, Italy and Greece are doing great during this decade. The new strategy of the management of ERT to chose the artist and the song internally, is proven to be successful, after years of bad results and 2 NQ (2016,2018).

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun because the journey to Eurovision 2023 has already begun!

Eurovision 2022: Watch the Live-on-Tape performances of Israel, Serbia and Malta!

The live-on-tape of the countries that participated in the 66th Eurovision Song Contest in May in Turin will be shown this year through the official Eurovision channel on YouTube.

From June 14 to 23, Eurofans will have the opportunity to watch the live-on-tape appearances of about thirty of the forty countries that took part in this year’s contest.

Today, it is the turn of two other countries of the first semi-final. Since the EBU decided to show the live-on-tapes based on the running order of the two semifinals, this means that today it is the turn of Israel, Serbia and Malta.

  • Watch the Live-on-Tape performance of  I.Mby Michael Ben David:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvzKZFXmng0

  • Watch the Live-on-Tape performance of  In corpore sanoby Konstrakta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odFhYxoXiuo

  • Watch the Live-on-Tape performance of I Am What I Am” από την Emma Muscat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_kFinz_cQ

Watch the previously published Live-on-Tape videos:

What do you think about the first Live-on-Tape videos of Eurovision 2022? Do you like them or do you prefer the live performances?

Stay tuned on Eurovisionfun for all the news regarding the Eurovision Song Contest!

Eurovision 2022: See the results of Press Poll just before the grand final!

As we informed you in our article, Press Poll 2022 has begun. After all countries have had all technical rehearsals, it is now time for the accredited to vote for the country that believes she will be the winner of the 66th Eurovision Song Contest.

Below are the results of the final of today’s 14/5 at 20:30:

In the vote for the winner, UK leads, Sweden is second, and Spain is third!


Follow us on all social media, so you do not miss a moment of what will happen in Turin:

Source: Ogae International

Eurovision 2022: See the results of the fifth day of Press Poll!

As we informed you in our article, Press Poll 2022 has begun. After all countries have had their three technical rehearsals, it is now time for the accredited to vote for the countries that will advance to the two semifinals, as well as the country that believes she will be the winner of the 66th Eurovision Song Contest.

Below are the results of the semifinals and finals of today’s 13/5 at 21:00:
First Semifinal

Second Semifinal

Grand Final

In the vote for the winner, UK leads, Sweden is second, and Greece is third!


Follow us on all social media, so you do not miss a moment of what will happen in Turin:


Stay tuned to Eurovision Fun for daily updates on Press Poll 2022!
Source: Ogae International