Bulgarian National Television has officially confirmed that their 2013 Eurovision representative will be internally selected. A special committee has been formed to choose the act, which they will announce on February 10.
The selected representative will present five songs to BNT, who will then select three of them to compete in a song selection on March 3–similar to what Cyprus did last year.
The three chosen songs will be released and performed live on February 17. A combination of a public vote and a special jury will select the winning song. BNT also took a cue from their northern neighbors Romania and stipulated that songs must be a “Bulgarian national product”: composed, written, and arranged/produced by Bulgarian citizens. No outsourcing to Swedish composers this time!
It’s interesting that BNT has opted for an internal selection this year. Many other countries are doing it too, including Russia, Spain, Armenia, The Netherlands, and Macedonia. Could it be due to the cost of staging a massive final? Bulgaria is one of the poorer countries in the contest, and consistently missing out on the Final probably isn’t motivating them to dedicate a large budget for participation.
Another interesting factor is the survey that BNT released to fans last summer, asking them what they thought would be best from a Bulgarian Eurovision entry as well as what they thought were the strengths and weaknesses of previous ones. Now it seems like they’re using those survey results as a guide to choosing their contestant. Of course, that could have just been window dressing which they ignored, which is essentially like spitting in the face of fans who took the survey. Perhaps we’ll never know for sure, but we’ll get a better idea of what their hopes and intentions are when we find out who they picked!
On a side note, rumors are floating around Bulgarian websites that Elitsa Todorova and Stoyan Yankulov, Bulgaria’s most successful Eurovision participants to date, have been selected to represent Bulgaria once again in Malmö. While this is just a rumor, it is plausible since BNT may be hoping to repeat the success the duo had in 2007. I would rather them pick someone new. Hopefully that act or group won’t sound like a pack of howling wolves.
