Netherlands: Proposal to Edsilia Rombley to present Eurovision 2020

Following “Game Of Thrones” star Michiel Huisman, Dutch media claim that the country’s representative at Eurovision 1998 and 2007, Edsilia Rombley, has accepted a proposal to present the 65th Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place May 12,14 and 16 in Rotterdam. .

In 1998 Edsilia Rombley took fourth place in the competition then held in Birmingham, with the song “Hemel en aarde”. In 2007, she represented the country for the second time, with the song “On Top Of The World”, but failed to qualify for the final of the event.

The news was broadcast by RTL television. Edsilia Rombley will also be one of the presenters of Eurovision In Concert, the biggest annual promo event, held before the contest.

Cyprus: Changes to Candidate Songs for Sandro Nicolas! EXCLUSIVE

Cyprus is still consulting on the song that Sandro Nicolas will be asked to perform at Eurovision 2020 in May.

Change to the three candidate songs by Sandro Nicolas

RIK is in constant contact with the artist and his team to come up with the song that will represent Cyprus in Rotterdam. The aim is, of course, to continue the good presence of Cyprus in the contest, with a good artistic appearance. RIK’s  people are working feverishly for this.

So the three songs that were considered as likely were:

-Mucho Calor (dance track)
-Can’t Look Away (mid tempo)
-Never Let You Down (pop modern track)

Some artistic disagreements between the two songwriters and the artist’s team led to their withdrawal.

Two new songs to the nomination list

Of course, this didn’t bother RIK, as two new songs have already been added to the nomination list, without adding another one.

Thus, the songs that are now candidates to represent Cyprus at Eurovision 2020 are:

-My getaway
-Falling to pieces
-Never Let You Down

CyBC has not officially announced Sandro yet, though it is not expected to be delayed, after the latest details of the deal have been settled. So far the overall response from fans is more than positive!

Estonia: The distribution of songs in the two semifinals of Eesti Laul 2020

While we all considered that the two-day announcement of the 24 entries of Eesti Laul 2020 essentially showed their distribution to the two Estonian National Semifinals, shortly before the country’s public broadcaster, announced in which semi-finalist each contestant would compete in.

We remind you that the semifinals will take place on February 13 and 15 in Tartu, while the grand final will be traditionally held at Saku Suurhall in Tallinn, where Eurovision 2002 took place. Six contestants will qualify from each semifinal. Tickets are already on sale. Eesti Laul 2020 will be presented by Karl-Erik Taukar and Tõnis Niinemets.

First Semifinal, February 13:

Anett x Fredi – Write About Me
Egert Milder – Georgia (On My Mind)
INGA – Right Time
Jennifer Cohen – Ping Pong
Kruuv – Leelo
Laura – Break Me
Little Mess – Without a Reason
Rasmus Rändvee – Young
Renate – Videomäng
Revals – Kirjutan romaani
STEFAN – By My Side
Synne feat. Väliharf – Majakad

Second Semifinal, February 15:

German & Violina – Heart Winder
INGER – Only Dream
Jaagup Tuisk – Beautiful Lie
Janet – Hingelind
Mariliis Jõgeva – Unistustes
Merilin Mälk – Miljon sammu
SHIRA – Out In Space
Traffic – Üks cord veel
Uku Suviste – What Love Is
Uudo Sepp – Sorry Sorry. I Messed Up
Viinerid – Kapa Kohi-LA
Ziggy Wild – Lean On Me

On 30/11 and 1/12 the 24 songs will be released, one day on the first semifinal and the other on the second. The exact order of appearance will be announced before each semifinal.

Eesti Laul, the Estonian selection method, has been in use since 2009. The winners of this institution have awarded some of its most successful entries in the country – including: Urban Symphony (2009), Kuula (2012), La Forza (2018).

Victor Crone was the winner of Eesti Laul 2019 and Estonia’s representative at Eurovision 2019. He performed “Storm” on Tel Aviv stage and took 20th place.

 

Sweden: These are the candidates for Melodifestivalen 2020

This afternoon, Swedish public broadcaster, SVT, unveiled the remaining 27 Melodifestivalen 2020 contestants! We’ve known that Amanda Aas is one of them, since she was selected by the P4 nästa radio competition.

More than 2,500 songs were submitted for the 14 venues from SVT’s open invitation, with the remaining 13 being artists invited directly from Swedish public television.

Sweden’s biggest music festival  will be hosted by David Sundin, Linnea Henriksson and Lina Hedlund, who will also be presenting all six nights of the show.

Melodifestivalen begins its musical journey on February 1 in Linkoping with its first semifinal and concludes in Stockholm on March 7 with the Grand Final.

2020 is the penultimate year that finds Christer Bjorkman at the wheel of Melodifestivalen. He would very much like to win Sweden’s seventh victory and equalize Queen Ireland over his days.

The lineup as you will see below includes a number of comebacks as well as fresh suggestions that the modern Swedish music scene has to offer through Melodifestivalen. 12 of the 28 songs are in Swedish lyrics!

Linkoping – First Semifinal – 1 February

Malou PrytzBallerina
Felix SandmanBoys with Emotions
OVÖInga problem
The MamasMove
Suzi PMoves
Sonja AldénSluta aldrig gå
Robin BengtssonTake a Chance

Return here for Robin Bengtsson who represented Sweden at Eurovision 2017, but also for The Mamas who were in Tel Aviv this year. Felix Sandman in an effort, like Sonja Aldén.

Gothenburg – Second Semifinal – 8 February

Linda Bengtzing – Alla mina sorger
Dotter – Bulletproof
Anna Bergendahl – Kingdom Come
Thorsten Flinck – Miraklernas tid
Klara Hammarström – Nobody
Paul Rey – Talking in my Sleep
Mendez – Vamos amigos

Seventh entry for Linda Bengtzing, but also a return for Méndez who in 2018 had conquered the charts. Anna Bergendahl will try her luck again this year, hoping to win again ten years later.

Lulea – Third Semifinal – February 15

Faith Kekembo – Crying Rivers
Amanda Aasa – Late
Albin Johnsén – Livet börjar nu
Drängerna – Piga och dräng
Mariette – Shout It Out
Anis Don Demina – Vem är som oss
Mohombi – Winners

Lots of returns in this semifinal too. Mariette and Mohombi seem to be the strongest names here, though theoretically this semifinal in terms of names looks more lucrative than the others.

Malmo – Fourth Semifinal – February 22

Hanna Ferm – Brave
Nanne Grönvall – Carpool Karaoke
William Strid – Molnljus
Jakob Karlberg – Om du tror att jag saknar dig
Ellen Benediktson & Simon Peyron – Surface
Victor Crone – Troubled Waters
Frida Öhrn – We Are One

Nanne represented Sweden in 1996 with “One More Time”, and has since been considered one of the most important representatives of schlager music. Victor Crone has represented Estonia at this year’s competition and hopes to be on the scene for the second consecutive year with his home country this time.

Aftonblatet in its previous articles, which we informed you, guessed successfully 23 of the 24 names it had given as confirmed artists. It basically just lost Renaida!

The Second Chance procession will take place on February 29, 2020, in Eskilston, with the Grand Final taking place once again at the Friends Arena in Stockholm on March 7, 2020.

So we’re looking forward to the rehearsals to get a little taste of Melodifestivalen 2020’s songs. Until then we can once again remember the Melodifestivalen 2019 winner and Sweden’s representative in Tel Aviv, John Lundvik, who took fifth place in Tel Aviv with “Too Late For Love”.

Eurostars: Maruv: “I received a proposal from BBC to represent the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2020”

In a recent interview, Maruv, winner of this year’s Ukrainian national final Vidbir, but ultimately did not represent her country at the contest, revealed that she had accepted a BBC proposal to represent the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2020.

The time of withdrawal

Many of you may remember that Maruv with “Siren Song” won the national selection, Vidbir 2019, but did not travel to Tel Aviv as she did not agree to cancel her appearances in Russia, but to accept a number of other conditions set by the public Ukrainian broadcaster. Subsequently, the country’s public television began reaching out to the other Vidbir 2019 candidates in order to find the country’s representative, but without success.

Finally, Ukraine announced its withdrawal from Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv. UA CEO: PBC Zurab Alasania officially announced Ukraine’s withdrawal from Eurovision 2019 through its official Facebook account on February 27.

Is the UK calling on Maruv?

For Eurovision 2020, BBC has announced that BMG will select both the artist and the song to represent the UK, hoping to finally get out of the final standings.

According to what Maruv said in an interview on November 22, the United Kingdom has proposed her to represent the country at Eurovision 2020 either by hertself or simply by sending her own song to another performer.

In the following video after 13:20 (in Russian):

She herself, of course, at the MTV Awards, had rejected any possible new entry into the Eurovision competition. As she typically stated, she would only appear again in the competition as a guest!

“I wanted it too, but that is life. Now I have other desires and other dreams, and I wish one day to go to Eurovision, but only as a guest. I would love this. But not of the time”

Ukraine for 2020 has decided to include in its Vidbir regulations that artists who have performed in Russia or Crimea after the dramatic events of 2014 are banned.

Let’s remember Maruv’s performance at Vidbir 2019:

 

Russia: Direct assignment for Eurovision 2020

Not surprisingly, it has now been announced that Russia will be selecting its representative internally for the Eurovision Song Contest for another year.

In 2012 we had to go for the last national final of Russia, when Buranovskiye Babushk, the grandmothers, managed to win Dima Bilan and then came second in the contest, which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan that year.

As Iurii Aksiuta, a Eurovision commentator for Channel One, revealed on Instagram Story, Russia is in the midst of an artist selection for Eurovision 2020 a after the end of Junior Eurovision 2019 on Sunday night!

Some names have already been heard: Olga Buzova, Alexander Panayotov and Dima Bilan, who wants to return for the third time. Olga Buzova is a television personality who, a few months ago, invited Philipp Kirkorov to sing together at the next Eurovision, while Alexander Panayotov has been trying to compete at ESC since 2005, but still holds the second place in all the national finals!

Source: Wiwibloggs

Bulgaria: Victoria Georgieva in Rotterdam

Bulgaria’s Public Broadcaster,BNT, has announced that 22-year-old Victoria Georgieva will represent the country in its comeback in the contest!

Recall that as BNT General Manager Emil Kuslokov revealed at the end of last month, Bulgaria’s return to Eurovision was made possible by a British production company, which was responsible for all the costs of participation. As revealed in today’s BNT press conference, this company is Ostereo.

In addition to the sponsor announcement, however, the BNT also unveiled Bulgaria’s Eurovision 2020 representative in Rotterdam in May. This is Victoria Georgieva, 22 years old who became known to the Bulgarian public through her participation in the fourth edition of X Factor, 2015.

Although the judges over the past three years mostly didn’t go to Victoria in the Lives, 2015 was her year. She was named Adele of Bulgaria and although she was not the final winner, having left 9th Live, her performances were perhaps more impressive than all the contestants.

The song, with which will compete on stage at Ahoy Arena, will be selected as an internal selection by Bulgarian Public Television, the sponsored production company and the artist’s team. It will be announced in March with the release of the relevant video clip. At this point it should be noted, however, that in the summer she was recording in the studio with Borislav Milanov, who was the composer of all of Bulgaria’s performances from 2016 onwards.

Below you can hear her latest single, released a few months ago:

Georgia: Results of Georgian Idol’s Second Live Show | New leader in voting

The second live show of Georgian Idol, the talent show used by Georgia’s public broadcaster for the second consecutive year to elect the country’s representative to Eurovision 2020 was completed on Saturday.

The nine contestants who continue on Georgian Idol after last week’s first Live, performed live for a second time in front of a television audience voting for the candidate of their choice via telephone and facebook messenger.

The two contestants who received the lowest percentage of the vote were Anri Guchmanidze and Liza Shengelia, with the second withdrawing from the race. Tornike Kipiani came in first with 19.13%, overtaking Tamar Kakalashvili, who was first in the previous live, but now with 15.71%.

At the second Georgian Idol Live Show, candidates were asked to perform well-known soundtracks. Below you can see their performances:

Tornike Kipiani – 19,13%

Tamar Kakalashvili – 15,71%

Barbara Samkharadze – 12,11%

David Rusadze – 10,23%

Mariam Shengelia – 8,72%

Mariam Gogiberidze – 8,69%

Nika Kalandadze – 8,68%

Anri Guchmanidze – 8,64%

Liza Shengelia – 8,09%

Unlike this year when Georgian Idol selected both the artist and the song that represented Georgia at the Eurovision Contest, for 2020 only the artist will be selected through the popular talent show, since the song will be followed by internal selection.

We remind you that the four jury members who oversaw the three-episode phase of the auditions and will guide the ten finalists in their lives are:

-Natia Todua, a singer who has made a significant career in Germany after her win at The Voice of Germany in 2016.
-Tinatin Berdzenishvili, GPB’s Deputy General Manager and Head of Delegation of Georgia to the Eurovision Contest.
-David Evgenidze, composer. He was the head of the jury for the country’s participation in Junior Eurovision 2019. He will oversee the selection of the song for Eurovision 2020.
-David Aladashvili, pianist.
This year, Oto Nemsadze won the Georgian Idol and with “Keep on Going” represented Georgia in Tel Aviv, taking 14th place in the first semifinal. As he said, shortly after the end of the contest, his song had a political message and was directed against Russia and its politics in his country.

Eurovision 2020: Jon Ola Sand: “There is no discussion of bringing Kazakhstan back”

In the city of Glivice, Poland, the Eurovision Song Contest Executive Supervisor  Jon Ola Sand has been out for a few days for the Junior Eurovision 2019.

In a press conference he gave to reporters, questions about regular Eurovision were of course too. One of the questions raised was Kazakhstan’s participation in Junior Eurovision and whether it opens the door to participation in adult Eurovision as well.

“There is no talk of bringing Kazakhstan to Eurovision”

Once again, Jon Ola Sand makes it clear that we will not see Kazakhstan in the contest – at least in 2020 – and that they are in ongoing dialogue between the EBU and the Kazakhstani public brοadcaster on membership and other events.

“First of all, we are very happy that Kazakhstan’s delegation is here and they did well last year. They have a great turnout this year and they generally prepare thoroughly and send out their best members basically, so we are very happy.

For the time being, there is no talk of bringing them to the Eurovision competition but we are in constant dialogue with the player at various levels – not only about our events but also about membership, and the services we offer.

They have visited the EBU offices several times, not just me but other departments and people of the EBU, and we want to continue the good dialogue with the Kazakh carrier because they add value, for example, to the competition – by Junior Eurovision – and we are very happy for this”

After all, in September, Jon Ola Sand himself had again stressed that there were no plans to invite the country to the 2020 competition in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Of course, the fact that the upcoming Eurovision competition will also be the last for Jon Ola Sand as Executive Supervisor may have a different approach to the issue from his successor.

Junior Eurovision 2019: Poland “shared the joy” and won the contest again

End titles fell shortly in Glivice, Poland for Junior Eurovision 2019, with XX raising the coveted prize for Poland for the second time in a row, writing history as it’s the first time in the history of the contest!

https://youtu.be/TvmqnNxnuJM

Viki with “Superhero” managed to gain 278 points from the combined rating of online voting and all 19 jury boards, leaving Kazakhstan in second and Spain in third place.

The night began with a spectacular dance followed by the parade of countries in alphabetical order, before the three presenters, Roksana Węgiel, Ida Nowakowska and Aleksander Sikora, took the floor. Thanks to the former host city of Minsk, Belarus, they welcome attendees as well as viewers to Poland and Glivice and gave the opening message of the 17th Junior Eurovision event.

Then it was time for the contestants:

01. AUSTRALIA

https://youtu.be/IGU9C6lppwQ

02. FRANCE

https://youtu.be/BYQFqHGAdto

03. RUSSIA

04. NORTHERN MACEDONIA

https://youtu.be/dymh0Qf6p_U

05. SPAIN

https://youtu.be/Qo_Tod1GxyU

06. GEORGIA

https://youtu.be/gYT5Orfd0zY

07. BELARUS

https://youtu.be/cFer5iAMUNM

08. MALTA

https://youtu.be/PBkC768pyvI

09. WALES

https://youtu.be/l6eyRQYx4nM

10. KAZAKHSTAN

https://youtu.be/tSVmX1E25C8

11. POLAND

https://youtu.be/TvmqnNxnuJM

12. IRELAND

https://youtu.be/X4gLmtUTAZc

13. UKRAINE

https://youtu.be/JUo6pKdSRtM

14. NETHERLANDS

https://youtu.be/G8-LOGjDlsc

15. ARMENIA

https://youtu.be/sWNEG54GEto

16. PORTUGAL

https://youtu.be/-SBE_03FxgY

17. ITALY

https://youtu.be/lRt2PPdex4w

18. ALBANIA

https://youtu.be/mGJJ05aGU0Y

19. SERBIA

https://youtu.be/UD2XanNM690

After the presentation of all 19 songs, the second and last online voting started for 15 minute .

The result

The final result was determined by 50% of the votes of the 19 committees of the participating countries and 50% of the results of the online vote launched on Friday 22/11 with people from all over the world.

The jury of each country announced their rating based on the order of appearance. The winner on the judging panels was Kazakhstan, while the television audience ranked Poland first.

So in combination of the two different votes, xxx crowned as the winning country.