It’s the Balkan nation that won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007…only to struggle in recent years. And now Belgrade’s attention has turned to Eurovision 2018 in Lisbon. Serbia‘s broadcaster RTS has revealed there have been 75 submissions for the national Eurovision selection process. 

The selection panel hard at work assessing songs

Songs have been submitted anonymously. Performers and songwriters will only be revealed after a pre-selection jury has made their choice. As with all Eurovision entries, songs must be no longer than three minutes and performers must be over the age of 16.

RTS has also asked for submissions in the official languages of Serbia, meaning entries can be sung in Serbian or any of the country’s recognised minority languages including Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Hungarian, Romanian, Rusyn and Slovak.

RTS revealed the news after extending the submission window by a further three weeks to allow time for more songs to be entered.

Is Serbia’s national selection Beovizija 2018 still happening?

After two years of internal selection, RTS entertainment editor Olivera Kovacevic suggested the country would return to a national selection for 2018, relaunching Beovizija.

Today’s release took a more cryptic line, suggesting that the selection process will be revealed in due course and failing to mention Beovizija by name.

Previous news from RTS suggested a shortlist of ten songs would be selected for the national final and that the winning entry would be chosen by a combined televote and jury voting.

Beovizija was used as Serbia’s national selection between 2007 and 2009, where it delivered a Eurovision win and a top-six result in 2008. Serbia also managed to place third in 2012, but has since fallen on harder times, crashing out in the semis in 2013 and more recently last year in 2017.

Despite a spirited performance, Tijana Bogicevic failed to advance from her heat, with “In Too Deep” finishing in eleventh place on 98 points.

Serbia will perform during one of the two semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 on May 8 or May 10.

What do you think? Should Serbia return to Beovizija for its 2018 selection? Or should they use something else? Share your thought below!

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13 Comments
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AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

I’m so looking forward to Beovizia!
The language is back so I believe we’ll listen to several good songs.

Marija
Marija
6 years ago

BEOVIZIJA?! YES, PLEASE!
To be honest, in previous years whole nation was on their feet during Beovizija and ESC, all were interested and excited. Now days, it’s not like that anymore… If they allow Beovizija this year, people will be interested in ESC again. Literally this year when I asked people, hey will u watch ESC, they were all like wtf, thats now (these days, month)?
And after Beovizija they’ll be up to date with ESC.
I think that ESC in 2018 will be amazing, all countries are into this, making a strategy… plus Asiavision… This will be a REVOLUTION.

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
6 years ago

In 2016, they did not have a song good enough for their vocalist and in 2017, they did not have a vocalist good enough for their song. Hopefully whatever process they end up using can tick both boxes.

Seks Droga Sekulic Goga
Seks Droga Sekulic Goga
6 years ago

Goga Sekulic!

Luc
Luc
6 years ago

Better 75 songs with 10 outstanding songs than 300 songs that are “not good enough” *cough Finland cough*

sam
sam
6 years ago

if jelena tomasevic returned i would probably cry. jutro and oro were masterpieces. s&m should’ve sent her with jutro and they would’ve eaaily won. serbia (usually) never fails to disappoint, so i’m curious as to what will come out of this. i’d love to see serbia in the top 5 again but i’m not sure how possible that is, we’ll have to wait and see i guess

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
6 years ago
Reply to  sam

You didn’t just call Serbia and Montenegro “S&M”. Samantha, sis…

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

looool

Belgrade2019
Belgrade2019
6 years ago

Singers who confirmed publicly that they submitted a song: Maja Nikolic, Mateja Vukasinovic, Igor Lazarevic. Local media also report a Jelena Tomasevic comeback, Saska Jankovic, Sanja Ilic Balkanika, Aleksandar Milic Mili

vili
vili
6 years ago
Reply to  Belgrade2019

Jelena Tomasevic publicly said in her post on FB that she didn’t submitted a song for Beovizija!

Jo
Jo
6 years ago

Bojana said she wants to compete again, so maybe she’s one of those 75.

vili
vili
6 years ago

Back in days Beovizija was really a big festival in Serbia! Only 75 song submitted this year is really shameful! RTS- completely ruined this festival, same as serbian chances to do something big on eurovision again! But knowing RTS i don’t think there is going to be national final, they will select someone internally with one of the submiteted song!

EscFAN
EscFAN
6 years ago

Olivera Kova?evi? said that they will make Beovizija if they receive more than 30 songs. Now as we have more than 70, I guess it’s sure that there will be a national final. It’s also great that Serbia will sing in Serbian again!! 🙂