It’s the Eurovision island that’s home to Ira Losco and that hosted last year’s Junior Eurovision Song Contest.

And now Malta has started its road to Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon Portugal, as Maltese broadcaster PBS has unveiled the details of next year’s national selection — Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2018

THE MESC 2018 RULES

MESC 2018 will ring in the new year in January 2018 and, as last year, the winner will be picked by 100% televoting.

Songs can be submitted on the PBS website and there is a non-refundable €150 submission fee for every entry. Compositions must not have been released commercially before November 1, 2017. But if a song has been previously publicly available in some other format then it may still be admitted at PBS’ discretion.

While the stars themselves must be Maltese or hold dual nationality, the same isn’t true for songwriters, who can be of any nationality. Sweden calling? 

Songs must be submitted by September 1. Then the elimination process begins.

First a panel of judges will listen to studio versions all of the songs submitted. Intriguingly, the judges also reserve the right to hear the artists perform the songs without playback too. Artists must sing live on the Eurovision stage, so this measure should expose any artists hiding behind excessive autotune or other special effects.

The selection process will take place under legal supervision. Justice will be served, y’all!

Once that process is through the judges will shortlist 60 candidates songs. Local and international juries will then cut that list in half to 30, and 16 finalists will compete in MESC 2018 to win the Maltese ticket to Eurovision 2018. The finalists will be announced in October.

Malta at Eurovision 2017

Last year Claudia Faniello snagged a surprise victory, seeing off fan favourites Brooke Borg and Janice Mangion, whose Maltese language ballad placed second.

Unfortunately her ballad “Breathlessly” failed to surprise on the night, crashing out of the semis and keeping Malta out of the Saturday night Grand Final.

GET MORE MALTA NEWS HERE

24 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago

They would have had a better chance with Janice Mangion and the first Maltese-language song in the contest since they first participated. Amber never had a chance. In the battle of the “Warriors”, I knew Nina would outclass her with her more ferocious tune. Worse yet, when the singing order was announced, and Nina got to sing last in the first semi, while Amber had to sing early in the second, Amber’s goose was cooked. And then to have G:son come in and make Nina’s already-ferocious song even more menacing, a NQ for Amber was all-but certain. If Amber comes… Read more »

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

I think they’re doing quite well for a small nation.
“Breathlessly” was just an average ballad and the result was predictable. The same for “Warrior”, that only had life in the ESC-bubble.

Héctor
Héctor
6 years ago

A €150 fee? Really? A public televisión shouldn’t be charging their artists trying to represent their country.

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  Héctor

€150? That’s all? That’s pocket change compared to the €500,000 that San Marino tried to extort from their would-be candidates.

Harry Montell
Harry Montell
6 years ago

Just send Ira again.

L'oiseau
L'oiseau
6 years ago

Why is Malta using only televote?…

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago
Reply to  L'oiseau

Because the public deserves to select their representative.

L'oiseau
L'oiseau
6 years ago

Yes but why 100% when the trend is to have 50/50 jury and televote in Eurovision. Wouldn’t that be a smarter way to select?

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  L'oiseau

The way the MESC scored beforehand was to give each juror one voice, and the public one voice. Five jurors against one for the televoters resulted in a lopsided advantage for the jury. That’s how Jessika lost in 2014. I don’t know how big a margin Jessika won with the televoters, but if it was anything close to half the voters or even more than that, she might have won with the MF method despite getting scores from only 2 of the 5 jurors (both Maltese).

Ugnius
Ugnius
6 years ago
Reply to  L'oiseau

Or maybe because they know that whatever they send, juries will love it, so they try to focus on what appeals to public to get more points from televoting 🙂

L'oiseau
L'oiseau
6 years ago
Reply to  Ugnius

Ok. Maybe that can be a good explanation, a bit risky though.

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  L'oiseau

Because the voting method they had before stacked the deck heavily in favor of the juries, to the point where, even if a contender won the televote, he or she could still end up losing easily on the overall scorecard. Consider how Jessika went from #1 televote to #8 overall at MESC 2014. If they had done it the MF way, she would have finished a lot closer to 1st, or maybe even won the whole thing.

Cwc
Cwc
6 years ago

Brooke !!

KennyESC
KennyESC
6 years ago

I want Janice Mangion again to slay and pick her ticket, this time for Lisbon! She would have been top 5 with Kewkba! Or even a winner, stupid Claudia’s Maltese fans!

CookyMonzta
CookyMonzta
6 years ago
Reply to  KennyESC

I’ll bet good horse money that she and her songwriters are now working on another Maltese-language tear-jerker to win the MESC crowd over. If it’s as good or even better than “Kewkba”, they might as well reserve a seat, for May 1, 2018, for her flight to Lisbon or Porto, or wherever they choose to host ESC.

PP
PP
6 years ago

I hope to see Jessika Muscat in MESC 2018 , after one year missing (with 3 songs out of final in 2017).

#MarioVision
#MarioVision
6 years ago

Chiara <3
Kevin Borg <3

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago

I need Brooke Borg to come for wigs for a third year in a row.

Colin
Colin
6 years ago

If the song isn’t ‘Unstoppable 2.0’ aka ‘Golden 3.0’, but something fairly original, I am all for Brooke. She is a very good singer and charismatic on stage too.

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago
Reply to  Colin

She should go for a strong empowerment song, but with a different formula from her two entries so far. Think “Roar” by Katy Perry.

EuroLove
EuroLove
6 years ago

This year Malta was totally robbed! Wtf 0 points from the televote? At least juries appreciated her talent and the emotion that came off this amazing song! The same thing happened in 2015! Malta please keep sending great songs as you always do! You always bring awsome things to the table no matter the result! I hope one day (it will be difficult though) you get what you deserve!

Colin
Colin
6 years ago
Reply to  EuroLove

The song was good, but it lacked the ‘wow’ factor on stage when compared to most others of the night. I am the fan of the song (in my top 20), but still didn’t put it in top 5 of the evening or voted.

Daniel
Daniel
6 years ago

Malta need to get a good result this year (2018) i hope they do well cause as a Eurovision fan I want every country to send a good song makes it a better contest for all

Bart
Bart
6 years ago
Reply to  Daniel

You are a hypocrite. Saying these nice things now but then attacking everyone that don’t like the music of your country