It took a while, but finally Minsk is calling with details of the Belarus selection process. Belarusian broadcaster BTRC has now confirmed details of the 2018 national final.

Belarus’ Eurovision national final comes later than usual this season. Normally Belarus is one of the first countries to select their entrant for the contest. In 2017, NAVIBAND were chosen on 20 January after a thrilling voting sequence. But for 2018, the final will take place no later than 1 March 2018.

The Belarusian broadcaster BTRC revealed some details of the selection. The submission period is open until 26 December. Just like last year, Belarusian singers and songwriters are as welcome, as well as foreign or even stateless persons.

At the beginning of January, the country’s legendary live auditions will take place. The jury will decide no later than 14 January which acts will proceed to the final stage of the selection.

The maximum of 15 acts will be selected for the final is 15. However, in recent years, this number hasn’t always been reached as the jury has claimed that there weren’t 15 acts of a sufficient quality. Last year, 13 songs participated in the final; the year before that, only ten.

You can’t mark your calendars yet, as BTRC has yet to confirm the official date of the grand final. However, they have said that it won’t be any later than 1 March.

The voting procedure will be the same as last year: the jury will give 50% of the points, while the other 50% is determined by televoting.

Meanwhile, several former Belarusian national final acts have entered San Marino‘s 1 In 360 selection. Lithuanian-born Belarusian diva Janet is one of them. She has tried to represent Belarus at Eurovision right from Belarus’s debut in 2004. She has tried to represent the country as well in 2006, 2014, 2015 and 2016.She achieved her best result in 2014, where she placed third. Janet has entered her song “Dragonfly” in 1 In 360.

Two-time finalist Tasha Odi, who participated in 2014 and 2015, also submitted to the selection, entering her new song “Empty Hearted”. Both Janet and Tasha’s songs are written by the prolific Swedish songwriting duo Ylva & Linda.

Last year’s finalist Angelika Pushnova has also entered her national final performance of “We Should Be Together”, which finished ninth back then. Angelika has been selected as one of the fan club wildcard nominees and faces a further vote.

Who do you want to represent Belarus at Eurovision 2018? Let us know in the comments below!

Follow all Belarus Eurovision news here

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esc freak
esc freak
6 years ago

New song? “Empty Hearted” was Domenique Azzopardi’s song for MESC 2016.

vlad
vlad
6 years ago

The quality of Belarusian NS is usually very low. However, there is always at least one or two pretty good entries that have a potential to do quite ok at Eurovision.

Mark
Mark
6 years ago

No, I think it’s mainly the countries who haven’t won yet.

Mark
Mark
6 years ago

Belarus has one of the worst National Finals in terms of song quality. I think they may need guidance from a Man in Sweden.

Or even better, which I think more countries should do is actually push a little harder to get American Songwriters involved. Eurovision is not known in the USA so less likely more songwriters to be turned off by any negativity related to the contest.

Jo
Jo
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark

The best option is to promote the contest in the country and invite some of their best songwriters to provide good songs, like Portugal did. Hiring a Swede is an old and overused formula, and they will probably end up with a Melfest reject.

Carmen
Carmen
6 years ago

Romania has moved its NF from March 5th (2017) to February 11th (2018). I don’t know why.

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago

I feel like national selections are moving forward every year. We used to have at least five or six songs by January 1 back in the day, and almost of all of them by February 28… now it’s like everyone wants theirs out in March.

Mark
Mark
6 years ago

Like maybe they don’t want their song to be to similar to another song so they wait to see what has already been selected.

Frisian esc
Frisian esc
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark

That doesn’t work if everybody starts selecting in march

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

Navi’s new song is very good.