Andorra: Absent from Eurovision 2024!

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Andorra joins the list with the countries that confirmed that they will not return to Eurovision in 2024, along with Slovakia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This isn’t a surprise, consider the following statement made last year by Dani Ortolà, RTVA’s Content Director:

Despite being part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), we have no plans to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest in the short or medium term.

Although Andorra’s absence does not come with an official explanation, participating in artistic competitions is not among RTVA’s projects.

Moreover, Susanne Georgi’s actions have not proven to be successful for Andorra’s return to Eurovision regardless her statement under which the Government of Andorra has given the green light for the comeback. Meanwhile, she is also working on organizing a Eurovision pre-party hosted in Andorra next year.

Andorra’s last participation was in 2009 with Susanne Georgi and her song “La Teva Decisió“, which ,like all the Andorran entries, did not manage to qualify to the Grand Final.

Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all news regarding Eurovision 2024!

Source: eurofestivales

Ireland: RTÉ unveils the cost of participating in Eurovision 2023!

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RTÉ, Ireland’s public broadcaster, has revealed the cost of the country’s participation in Eurovision for the last four contests, namely from 2019 to 2023.

Through the website Irish Mirror, the public broadcaster revealed that they paid €340,000 for the participation of Wild Youth in Liverpool, which includes €58,129 for the staging and €105,099 for the participation fee to EBU. This was the country’s highest cost in four years.

Below you can see Ireland’s cost of participating, from 2019 to 2023:

  • 2023 – €340,000 including participation fee 105.099€
  • 2022 – €315,161 – including participation fee 92,588€
  • 2021 – €330,000 – including participation fee 88,100€
  • 2019 – €336,000

As we can see from the figures, after the exclusion of Russia and Belarus from the EBU, the cost of participation has increased for all other participating broadcasters. Ireland’s participation fee has increased by €16,999 from 2021, an increase of 19.3%.

RTÉ has already announced that it will be competing in Eurovision 2024. Submissions are open for anyone wishing to represent Ireland at Eurovision 2024, as in early 2024, a shortlist of artists will perform their songs on television, from which the winner will be the representative of the country in the contest.

Wild Youth represented Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.  Sadly, they did not qualify to the Grand Final.  Ireland has not qualified to the Grand Final since 2018

Source: Irish Mirror

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Belgium: Present in Eurovision 2024 with an internal selection!

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A while ago, RTBF, Belgium’s French-speaking public broadcaster, confirmed to ESCToday that the country will take part in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, which will be held on Swedish ground.

The RTBF will once again organize an internal selection for Eurovision 2024 rather than a national final, unlike the Dutch-language broadcaster VRT, as it did in 2023 for the first time in years and brought Belgium back into the top 10 .The French-language broadcaster will reveal more information in due course.

After Belgium’s announcement, the number of countries that have confirmed their participation in Eurovision 2024 rises to 27:

  • 🇦🇹 Austria
  • 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan
  • 🇧🇪 Belgium
  • 🇨🇾 Cyprus
  • 🇩🇰 Denmark
  • 🇪🇪 Estonia
  • 🇫🇮 Finland
  • 🇫🇷 France
  • 🇩🇪 Germany
  • 🇮🇸 Iceland
  • 🇮🇪 Ireland
  • 🇮🇱 Israel
  • 🇮🇹 Italy
  • 🇱🇹 Lithuania
  • 🇱🇺 Luxembourg
  • 🇲🇹 Malta
  • 🇲🇩 Moldova
  • 🇳🇱 Netherlands
  • 🇳🇴 Norway
  • 🇵🇱 Poland
  • 🇵🇹 Portugal
  • 🇸🇲 San Marino
  • 🇷🇸 Serbia
  • 🇪🇸 Spain
  • 🇸🇪 Sweden
  • 🇨🇭 Switzerland
  • 🇺🇦 Ukraine

At the same time, twelve countries from last year’s event have not yet confirmed their participation, and these are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Georgia, Greece, Latvia, Romania, Slovenia, United Kingdom

Last year, Belgium was represented by Gustaph and his song “Because of You”, ending up in seventh place of the Grand Final:

https://youtu.be/U1xD14IMKtg

Source: esctoday.com

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Käärijä selects winner for tribute mural competition!

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Finnish Eurovision 2023 representative Käärijä has selected the artwork for a mural celebrating his music achievement in Liverpool.  The mural will get finished by the end of September in the city of Vantaa, Käärijä’s hometown.

The city of Vantaa commissioned a mural to honor Käärijä (real name Jere Pöyhönen) to honour the singer’s performance in Eurovision.  Käärijä won the televote and finished in second place at the Eurovision 2023, Finland’s second best result in the pan-European music festival.

Mural selection

Vantaa received several proposals for a mural which were later filtered to four candidates.  A public poll took place receiving more than 23,500.  Following this vote the best two proposals made it to the last stage of the process. Käärijä decided the winner from these two last proposals.  Artists Viivi Vierinen, Juha Lahtinen and Joonas Koponen designed the winning mural.

The painting of the mural will starton August 18, 2023.  The whole project costed around 20000 euros.

Source: Yle

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Malta: With Yulan Law to Junior Eurovision 2023!

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12 young artists competed today in order to win the prize of representing the Maltese Archipelago in Junior Eurovision 2023 through “Malta Junior Eurovision Song Content”, the Maltese national selection. 80% of the results was determined by a jury and the other 20% via a public SMS vote.

The artists that competed with covers version songs were the following:

  1. Point Blank
  2. Yulan Law
  3. Kaylyn Mallia
  4. Aaliyah Grech
  5. Anneka Xerri
  6. Shyann Cutajar
  7. Daylin Cassar Randich
  8. Cesca Galea
  9. Emma Farrugia
  10. Keira Farrugia
  11. Andrea Camilleri
  12. Dawn Desira

Yulan Law, who has attempted to represent Malta in three other occasions in 2019,2020 and 2021, was crowned as the winner of the selection and therefore will represent Malta in Junior Eurovision 2023. Daylin Cassar Randich and Dawn Desira finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.

The search for the song that Yulan will sing in Nice will start in September, when PBS will open the submissions for composers and songwriters.

The Junior Eurovision Contest 2023 will take place in Nice, France on the 26th of November after Lissandro’s win last year in Yerevan.

Stay tuned on EurovisionFun for all news regarding Junior Eurovision 2023!

Liechtenstein: The channel 1 FL TV rules out debuting in Eurovision 2024!

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As we can see, Liechtenstein will not be making its Eurovision Song Contest debut, not even in 2024, in Malmo, Sweden.

The country’s public broadcaster, 1 FL TV, confirmed a while ago to ESC Today, that they will not be participating this year either. Liechtenstein faces more problems than other countries in joining the Contest, as the channel must first become a member of the EBU.

The rules of the competition, as they currently stand, only allow members of the European Broadcasting Union to participate. As joining the Union would add additional costs to its participation, especially for a small country, Liechtenstein has not participated in the Contest so far.

In the early 2010s, Liechtenstein had shown interest in taking part in the Contest, as the then director of 1 FL TV, Peter Kolbel, wanted his country to join Eurovision. However, the whole process stopped when Kolbel passed away four years ago.

Managing Director of the Liechtenstein’s broadcaster Sandra Woldt has confirmed back in 2022, that they are no longer interested in joining the European Broadcasting Union and so competing in Eurovision, as one of their aims. Sandra Woldt said in a statement that:

“We are no longer pursuing this goal, we are concentrating on our reporting in and for Liechtenstein.”

This means that, based on the information we have so far, we will not see a new country making its debut in the competition this year either. The last country to debut was Australia, back in 2015.

Source: esctoday.com

Switzerland: Submission window for Eurovision 2024 is now open!

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Just a few ays ago, Switzerland, announced that they are going to selecet both their artist and song for Eurovision 2024, internally. Earlier today, the German-speaking public broadcaster of the country, SRF, posted the new rules of the internal selection, as well as opening the submission window.

The selecton process will be a little different from the one that is being used since 2019, which gave Switzerland a qualification streak for the first-time, as well as two top 5 results!

Just like in previous years, there will be different stages of the selection. In all of these stages, the songs will be assessed by two different juries. The first will consist of  a 25-member jury, which will include music professionals who have taken part in the contest in the past. On the same time, this year we will see an international audience jury taking part in the selection.

Whoever wants to take part in the selection, can submit their song in the official website of SRF for Eurovision, between the 10th and the 25th of August 2023. The artist and song that will represent Switzerland, will be revealed in early 2024.

The representative of Switzerland in Eurovision 2024, was Remo Forrer with his song “Watergun”, ending up in 20th place in the Grand Final:

https://youtu.be/l4NDErv49mk

San Marino: Una Voce per San Marino paves the way for Eurovision 2024!

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Una Voce per San Marino will remain as the San Marino selection for Eurovision 2024.

Una Voce per San Marino has been confirmed for its third edition in order to select San Marino’s entry for Eurovision 2024. Last year’s 2023 edition of Una Voce per San Marino saw the show expand, with 106 artists selected through casting to compete in the live semi-finals, making it one of the biggest national finals of the 2023 season.

The 2024 edition will see more changes to the format, including the return of the wildcard that will allow big names to have direct access to the finals for the first time since 2022.

Una Voce per San Marino 2024 will mark the fourth time that San Marino will choose to participate in Eurovision through a national final. The first time was in 2018, when 1in360 was used as the country’s national final for Eurovision.

Una Voce per San Marino was held for the first time in 2022 with Achille Lauro winning the first edition and representing San Marino in Turin with the song “Stripper”, while last year the Piqued Jacks with their song “Like an Animal” won the second edition of Una Voce per San Marino, in which over 100 artists participated in the live performances to claim victory and represent the country in Liverpool.

Below you can watch Piqued Jacks’ performance of their song “Like an Animal” at Una Voce per San Marino 2023:

Source: eurovoix.com

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Slovakia: RTVS plans to return in the near future!

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With 9 months still to go for the next edition of Eurovision Song Contest, many countries confirm day by day their participation in Eurovision 2024. Meanwhile, there are also countries confirming that they do not plan a return such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovakia, claiming the lack of recourses.

Two months ago, Slovakia announced that there are no plans to return, although the latest news indicate that the country can possibly return in the near future.

According to the PR and Communication Director of RTVS, Zuzana Vicelova, the National Broadcaster of Slovakia is thinking of returning to Eurovision in 2025.

This decision seems to be coming from the General Director of RTVS, Ľuboš Macha, who took the reins of the Slovakian broadcaster in July 2022.

A new way of funding for RTVS

The impediment to a Slovakian participation for the past decade has been the lack of funding and recourses that RTVS was facing. Although, an alteration in legislation regarding the funding of RTVS from public sources, the elimination of TV license fees and a generous government subsidy will sure relieve the Slovakian Television. As a result, RTVS will see an increase of 46 million euros in its budget, that will definitely not be able to cover all its needs but an important boost will be given.

Slovakia last participated in Eurovision back in 2012 with “Don’t Close Your Eyes” and since the introduction of the Semi-Finals has never managed to qualify to the Grand Final.

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Source: eurofestivales

Netherlands: “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence becomes the first Eurovision song to reach One Billion streams on Spotify!

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A few hours ago, Duncan Laurence broke a new record, and even managed to reach milestone that no other contestant has reached!

Specifically, for some time now, “Arcade”, the winning entry of the Netherlands in Eurovision 2019, is the only song of the competition that has gathered more than one billion streams on the Spotify platform.

Of course, “Arcade” is also the Eurovision song with the most streams, while Rosa Linn’s “Snap” is the runner-up, which has received just under 750 million streams.

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