In recent years, while Bulgaria has selected their Eurovision act internally, they’ve made an effort to generate some buzz and involve fans in the process. This year, however, broadcaster BNT says they won’t reveal anything until the selected song is presented.
The news was confirmed by BNT on Twitter, in response to a query from a Eurovision blogger. He asked the broadcaster, “When should we expect to hear more news about the Bulgarian entry? Any teasers? Are entry confirmations open yet – maybe you’re returning to a national final?”
A lot of questions were asked, but only one brief answer was given from the broadcaster: “No details will be published this year until the song presentation/selection.”
Dear Tom,
No details will be published this year until the song presentation / selection.
Best regards.— BNT Eurovision Bulgaria ?? (@bg_eurovision) September 1, 2018
This is a big change for Bulgaria from recent years, where the broadcaster dropped hints and even let fans have their say in a song assessment jury.
The tweet also confirms that Bulgaria will again use internal selection and not return to using a national final to select their entry for 2019. Speculation around a national final was reignited earlier in the year when HoD Joana Levieva-Sawyer told an interviewer, “We would love to do a national final and we are slowly getting there”.
No more fan jury
In the past, BNT has been a lot more open with their internal selection process. In 2017, the broadcaster dropped hints about the six shortlisted songs it was considering for Kyiv. The songs were internally assessed by an international focus group, who overwhelmingly were in favour of Kristian Kostov’s entry “Beautiful Mess”.
For 2018, BNT got fans even more involved. The broadcaster again dropped hints about the 13 songs under consideration, but fans were also able to be part of a jury that would assess the songs.
However, this was not without drama, as some fan jury members broke the confidentiality agreement and discussed the entries on social media. The internal selection process was also dominated by speculation that Loreen was the singer on one of the entries, which proved to be untrue.
The broadcaster was also criticised for overhyping the 2018 entry and selection process, which led to many fans feeling disappointed when “Bones” was finally released to the public.
But it appears all this is off the table for 2019. BNT is putting themselves on mute. It seems the first fans will hear of the Bulgarian selection for Eurovision 2019 is when the confirmed entry is finally revealed to the public.
While BNT has not said when their act for Eurovision 2019 will be announced, it is likely that Bulgaria will again wait until March before presenting the selected song and artist.
What do you think? Is BNT wise to keep their internal selection process private? Who would you like to see represent Bulgaria at Eurovision 2019? Leave your comments below!
Good, they learned from this year i suppose. I thought it was hilarious and irritating the way they thought they’d walk ESC this year. Glad they didnt win this year.
The so-called fan jury wasn’t even real. They’d already decided the song by then. They just wanted to get influencers on board and create more hype.
I just hope it isn’t another futuristic dystopian song with jury bait feelings.
it will be overhyped again and released a day before deadline…
Did you even read the article? The whole point is that they’re not going to overhype it.
Only because the broadcaster won’t overhyped it doesn’t mean the fans/betting sites won’t overhyped it before the release anyway.
We need new composers for Bulgaria other than Borislav Milanov and his team. Please try it for Macedonia again instead and hire again Sasha Jean-Baptiste. Because Macedonia needs her immideatley!!!
Didn’t Macedonia hire Sasha Jean-Baptiste for Jana Burceska in 2017? That didn’t turn out so good, because she underplayed Jana’s stage setting when the song and the music pretty much demanded that the stage look like a mini-rave party.
As for Equinox, the stage setting needed to look darker than it was, before it transitioned into a creepy brightness as “Bones” approached its climax.
It’s early September and they’re already being annoying. Hopefully they deliver a good song this year, written by someone else other than the same team which is clearly out of ideas.
It s time for new composers for Bulgaria. No more Milanov and swedish composers song , 3 time in row i s enough, and no more Sasha Jean Baptiste as stage director.
Definetely! I would like to see Sofi Marinova returning with another bop like Love Unlimited.
Hallelujah! If Bulgaria proved one thing this year, it’s to never believe the hype.
Seeing how they got less than enthuastic response to “Bones” it probably is a good choice!
It’s okay to give hints as long as they’re accurate and you don’t create false expectations. Like how they implied a Top 5 ESC contestant was involved, when in reality there was no such thing.
Loreen and Helena Paparizou were in talks to be the female vocalists on Bones but they thankfully turned it down.
They would have had to give them a full verse; and given the way they structured the song, that wasn’t going to happen.
The Twitter page later revealed that the Top 5 ESC contestant was Poli Genova
Looks like poli is trying to come back again, there’s a snippet of ‘colours’ from this year’s selection floating around somewhere online, and zhanna’s entry ‘rebirth’ in full is up around somewhere, (was really not good :S)
Colors has been going around since early 2017 actually, I’ve heard it in full it’s pretty wack and it’s aged like milk anyway.
Did someone get fired for that ‘common framework’ explosion in the hype factory?