Romania‘s broadcaster TVR has confirmed that it will again use the long-running national final Selecția Națională. But, following The Humans’ disappointing non-qualification in Lisbon, the broadcaster has made some changes to the national final format.

Selecția Națională will again use a number of semi-finals. A maximum of 24 acts will compete in the semis and no more than 12 acts will qualify for the grand final.

The number of semi-final shows has not been confirmed, but it is expected it will be less than the five held in 2018, as part of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the Union of Transylvania with Romania. Last month it was revealed that the city of Suceava was in talks to host at least one show, suggesting that TVR will again host shows outside the capital city.

Most semi-final qualifiers will be chosen by the votes of an expert jury, which is standard for the Romanian semi-finals. However, viewers will also have the ability to select up to two wildcard qualifiers. This is similar to the system used in 2016, where the public voted Vanotek feat. The Code & Georgian into the grand final, where they placed second.

The grand final, however, gets the biggest voting shake-up. Selecția Națională will now use an international jury along with the televote to decide the grand final winner.

Since 2016, the Romanian national final has determined the grand final winner by televote alone. However, Romania non-qualification at Eurovision 2018 may have prompted the broadcaster to rethink the voting. Using an international jury will bring a different perspective to the voting, and may help avoid an act scoring big due to local popularity, rather than song quality.

Entries for Selecția Națională 2019 are open now and will close on December 10. Last month Romanian Eurovision 2006 singer M I H A I revealed he was considering entering a duet with 2005 singer Luminița Anghel.

The competing songs for Selecția Națională 2019 will be chosen before Christmas. The semi-finals are due to take place sometime in January or February 2019, with the grand final sometime in February.

What do you think of the changes to Selecția Națională? What sort of act would you like Romania to send to Tel Aviv? Share your thoughts below.

Read more Romania Eurovision news here

Total
52
Shares
19 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mikey
Mikey
5 years ago

I think Conchita will take part . I saw a video with her two days ago inviting the romanian artists to submit their songs for Selectia Nationala.

alex
alex
5 years ago

somebody knows if the COMPOSERS / ARTIST can be from outside of romania?

romanian
romanian
5 years ago
Reply to  alex

In 2017 Sergiu Bolota competed with the song We Were Young written by Stig Rasta, so I guess is possible. Also Bella Santiago I don’t think she has romanian citizenship.

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

I hope INNA will try to represent her country with the song No Help.

Geo
Geo
5 years ago
Reply to  Alex

She will never ever compete, she’s just too weak as a vocalist

Polegend Godgarina
Polegend Godgarina
5 years ago
Reply to  Geo

Great vocals aren’t needed to do well, look at half of the Swedish act in the past 15 years. Inna is just too successful already.

Hrvatska
Hrvatska
5 years ago

In contrast, Slovenia will perform in the same way ema that took place in 2016. Maybe Raiven for the third time will succeed because she recently changed the music studio to surprise us in 2019 plus addition rtv slo can choose the finalists who appears in the ema . Romania has a musical potential that must reveal it during the national elimination because it can afford to regain its form

Jack
Jack
5 years ago

Back to the 2006-9 format then, I knew they’d cut down songs in the semifinals cause last year’s selection despite celebrating the 100th anniversary of Romania’s union was a little absurd as most songs were so-so and only 5 people decided the semifinal qualifiers while the final was determined by 100% televoting, “Goodbye” was actually my favorite and was brutally underrated by ESC fans who just can’t appreciate Indie Rock, I was sad The Humans didn’t qualify and narrowly missed out by 4 points(but for once Romania did better on juries than televoting!) I like these changes, good to see… Read more »

Joe
Joe
5 years ago
Reply to  Jack

I agree that Goodbye was very underrated. I still don’t understand how it did so badly (relatively speaking).

NO BIG 5
NO BIG 5
5 years ago

Its waiting or Mihai give it a try again. He was robbed allmost every year. But I can imagine. Most people in this country say NO and boycott Israel’s apartheid show. Because romania people are smart.

Marcelo
Marcelo
5 years ago
Reply to  NO BIG 5

Since Romania is confirming their national selection in Tel Aviv, it seems that they won’t be boycotting anything soon. So, bye, Felicia.

Jo.
Jo.
5 years ago

Great, their own jury was lame.

Gio
Gio
5 years ago

They chose one of the worst acts as winner last year. So I understand them for not trusting the public vote.

NickC
NickC
5 years ago

I am still crying for that wonderful song which was robbed by the romanian public. It was called something like feel your heartbeat, sang by a group with a filipina vocalist. (Sorry, I am bad with names)I think international juries would have sent it straight to Lisbon, and Romanian streak would have continued.

romanian
romanian
5 years ago
Reply to  NickC

Yes, Bella Santiago and the band Jukebox, hope they will participate again. Bella Santiago was on x factor recently. She said that in Philippines her beauty is just ordinary, but in Romania everybody tells her she is gorgeous out of this world. And she is talented.

Paul
Paul
5 years ago

I don’t understand using international juries. Surely the people of the country should just choose the entry representing their nation – reflecting the identity etc.

Also – why would the international jury want to help a country at the detriment of their own country? If I was on an international jury – I’d give the most points to the worst entry so my country would have a better chance of winning at the contest.

romanian
romanian
5 years ago

Is a good idea to have international jury and televote. It seems TVR watches what other countries do, and is good to do that instead of looking at what was successful in the past.

Alex
Alex
5 years ago

This selection getting closer to Melodifestivalen.

Joe
Joe
5 years ago
Reply to  Alex

Is that a bad thing?