As we slowly head into national final season, the confirmations for Eurovision 2019 are rolling in. Lithuania‘s broadcaster LRT has confirmed that the Baltic nation intends to compete in Israel.
The broadcaster confirmed the news to ESCToday. The inclusion of Lithuania now completes the Baltic trio of countries participating at Eurovision 2019.
But while Latvia and Estonia have confirmed they will again use their respective national finals, Supernova and Eesti Laul, LRT is yet to confirm how they will select their act for Israel.
However, it is likely that LRT will again use their marathon national final, ‘Eurovizijos’ dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka.
The epic marathon of Eurovizijos Atranka
Eurovizijos Atranka has been used since 2013 and has a reputation amongst national final aficionados as usually being the longest national final every year.
The 2014 edition of the show took an epic 12 weeks to select Vilija and her song “Attention”. Despite the substantial effort in the selection process, “Attention” did not qualify for the grand final in Copenhagen — though Vilija did win the Barbara Dex Award.
The show has previously been criticised for making the entrants perform their songs too many times over the series. The format put pressure on the artists to constantly change the performances so audiences would not get bored — something that is not applicable at Eurovision.
Since then, Eurovizijos Atranka has taken a more slimmed-down and structured format. The 2018 edition took just nine weeks to decide its winner, Ieva Zasimauskaitė with “When We’re Old”. Ieva only had to perform her song four times throughout the series, while in 2016 winner Donny Montell had to perform his song six times.
Ieva and Donny have been two of Lithuania’s most successful acts at Eurovision, respectively placing 12th and ninth in the grand final. Only 2006 group LT United placed higher, coming in sixth.
In recent years, Lithuania has also qualified for the grand final in 2015 when Monika Linkytė & Vaidas Baumila sang “This Time”. Last year’s act electro-pop duo Fusedmarc saw their song “Rain of Revolution” come in near the bottom of its semi-final.
What do you think? Whose turn is it to win the national final? Who would you like to see represent Lithuania at Eurovision 2019?
Actually that national selection will be different, because this year our broadcaster decided to change the selection producers.
Source ?
When I read the title I immediately had this nice (and a little old) song in the head ^ – ^
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUi2k4ek3E[/youtube]
Oh joy, let’s have another three months of NF with 10 rounds that last for three to four hours each, so we can get another Fusedmarc, who will be dead last in their semi final. YEAH YEAH
Rain of Revolution is my guilty pleasure, poor innunciation and all. Yeah Yeah!
YEAH YEAH
Is it just me, or would anyone else here find it quite interesting to have Andrius Pojavis back with another synthwave song?
Just you.
I did hear israel did choice for a slogan for next year songcontest. ” WE ARE EURO’S VISION NOW A DAY’S.” . But keep it secret. 😉 =D
Yes their national selection is long but it gets good views.
Good views equals more money from advertising and sponsors.
When you consider that for a few years it looked like Lithuania wouldn’t be able to compete due to financial difficulties and now where their national selection stage has grown in size and complexity it can only be a good thing.
Hopefully though artist don’t have to perform their songs like 6 times because that can be exhausting for them.
I had a nightmare Last night that their national final Will start the day after eurovision and it would finish in March
Marvelous! We’re all ready for yet another never-ending national final that no one is going to watch.
The only Baltic country to have never won Eurovision. Lithuania tries hard but in a wrong way!
Which is why they need to completely overhaul the process. Is it really necessary to have a contender sing their song as many as 8 times before reaching the final, when at Eurovision they will only have to perform it a maximum of 4 times (twice for the jury, twice for the public)?
Actually this years’ Eurovizijos atranka contenders sang their songs 4 times as well (not 8)
Still, the Lithuanian NF needs a lot of polishing.
got to say one of my least favourite national finals
1. the jury are incompetent as well as the producers who sabotaged mia in 2015 when they put monika and vidas together
2. most of the songs are either weird like fusedmarc or follow the latest generic trend but in a bad way
3. too long (need i say more)