It’s the Balkan nation who are relaunching the national final that led to their first Eurovision win in 2007. Now Serbia‘s broadcaster RTS has extended the entry period for the Beovizija 2018 by an extra three weeks.

When the return of Beovizja was confirmed last week, applicants had until 20 October to get their songs in. But that timeframe gave Serbia’s next potential Eurovision stars less than two weeks to enter.

The broadcaster has expanded the entry period. Now interested artists have three more weeks to organise their entry. The new closing date is 10 November 2017.

RTS spokesperson Duska Vucinic-Lucic told Serbian media, “Our wish is to get as many quality and diverse compositions as possible, to deliver a competitive atmosphere.”

She also revealed that RTS has not yet decided if the national final will involve one show or two. They are also considering holding it in the RTS studio in Kosutnjak or at the traditional home of Beovizija, the Sava Centar.

Rules and regulations

The regulations for the 2018 national final have also been published. From the submitted entries, a shortlist of up to ten songs will be selected by a panel of music editors from RTS. If there aren’t enough good entries, the broadcaster reserves the right to internally select one song instead.

The finalists will then perform at the grand final of Beovizija sometime in February 2018. The winning entry will be chosen by a combined jury vote and televote.

RTS are looking for songs in a “fun and popular” style. They also require that song lyrics must be written in one of the languages used in Serbia. While Serbian is the official language, the country’s recognised minority languages are Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Rusyn and Slovak.

The singers of the songs must be Serbian citizens, and entrants should also include their ideas for the staging of the performance.

RTS’s return to Serbia’s traditional Eurovision national final follows two years of internal selection. While Serbia’s act for 2016, Sanja Vucic, placed 18th in the grand final, earlier this year Tijana Bogicevic narrowly missed out qualifying for the grand final.

Beovizija was used to select Serbia’s entry for the first three years of its Eurovision participation. This includes their 2007 entry, where Marija Serifovic gave Serbia its first victory with “Molitva”.

What do you think? Who would you like to see enter the new national final? Can Beovizija produce another Eurovision winner? Sound off below!

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Callum
Callum
6 years ago

Makes the BBC seem like they’re the perfect NF hosts to be honest. So much date changing and only giving the songwriters a really short time to prepare and submit an entry. Really baffles me. And countries then moan when they can’t qualify.

Esc Fan
Esc Fan
6 years ago
Reply to  Callum

I don’t see a problem here. The submissions were opened on August 19th and initially should close today, but it was extended for another three weeks. That’s almost three months for the songwriters. That’s more than enough time. Plus if they close it earlier (the last editions of Beovizija the song deadline was end of January), they will have more time to pick the really good and qualitative songs and make two evenings of a great national selection.

jj
jj
6 years ago
Reply to  Esc Fan

No, the article says they only had two weeks:
“When the return of Beovizja was confirmed last week, applicants had until 20 October to get their songs in. But that timeframe gave Serbia’s next potential Eurovision stars less than two weeks to enter.”

There was no opening for submissions in Serbia in August, only earlier this month.

Esc Fan
Esc Fan
6 years ago
Reply to  jj

Then this information is wrong, the author should correct it. I’m from Serbia and I can confirm that the submissions opened on 19th August, officially published on RTS.

jj
jj
6 years ago
Reply to  Esc Fan

You have a link?

necky
necky
6 years ago

hope they’ll come up with some good and diverse songs and that some famous singers will apply.
fingers crossed, serbia!

JD
JD
6 years ago

Robyn, Sanja didn’t come 16th in the final. She came 18th. 🙂

Pollaski
Pollaski
6 years ago

It always kind of baffles me how many of these Eurovision nations seem to be making stuff up as they go along. You’d think they’d be planning and preparing for this the moment the last contest ends so they don’t have to keep changing up stuff.

Pollaski
Pollaski
6 years ago
Reply to  Pollaski

Oh, I get that (although you’d think prospective ESC people would be working on their songs before even the official announcements are made). So that begs the question- why did they go with a two week entry window in the first place?

Denis
Denis
6 years ago
Reply to  Pollaski

Agreed! Giving songwriters only two weeks to enter will obviously not result in the songwriters sending in thier best efforts