Entries for Montenegro‘s national selection closed at the end of November. Now broadcaster RTCG has confirmed that 27 entries were received. If that seems a bit on the small side, the broadcaster has further revealed that of those, only ten entries were valid.
The total of 27 is slightly down on last year’s total, when 31 entries were received. However, the broadcaster has confirmed that only ten entries actually met the entry criterial for the competition.
Selection committee head Vladimir Maras confirmed that “the commission, in the presence of the RTCG Legal Service, noted that 27 songs had been received, of which 17 had not met the set criteria.”
RTCG has not clarified how the songs didn’t meet the criteria. If could be a breach of the usual Eurovision rules — longer than three minutes, released prior to 1 September, inappropriate lyrics — or it could be something unique to Montenegro.
The broadcaster will accept songs with lyrics in either Montenegrin or English — but perhaps entries have been received written in other languages. A maximum of two songs per songwriter could be entered, so it’s possible some writers entered more.
RTCG also said it was looking for “entertaining and popular” music, so it’s possible that those 17 songs were neither entertaining nor popular.
At this stage, it’s not clear if the broadcaster will internally select a song or if they’ll again use the national final Montevizija.
Last month, Montenegro’s Head of Delegation Nataša Baranin said that Montevisija would be held and it would involve five acts. However, with only ten valid entries to select from, the broadcaster may feel that it does not have enough quality entries to make up a national final. There is speculation that RTCG will choose to select their entry for Tel Aviv internally.
Since 2007, Montenegro has competed at Eurovision ten times, but has only qualified for the grand final twice. Their best results was in 2015 when Knez performed the ballad “Adio” and placed 13th in the final.
What do you think? Should Montenegro even bother having a national final if there are only ten entries? Who would you like to see represent Montenegro in Tel Aviv? Tell us your thoughts below!
a Greece 2018 sized mess
Wow. Funny how montenegro got only 27 entries, and spain got over a thousand songs submitted in just two weeks
Dont you think Spain are a lot bigger? Thats the obvious reason.
well, they need just one.
So! Apparently, they made a mistake in the English language rules, so they’re going back through the other entries to see if any still meet the qualifications. Smooth, guys.
Some of the acts were just too lazy to read all the rules that’s why only 10 acts met the criteria. Balkan people will understand the joke xD
Or those of us who are Geography Now fans on YouTube!!
They just did their Montenegro episode 🙂
i See them to 🙂
I guess Vasilije is out then!
The last Montevizija selection wasn’t bad but they picked the weakest song of the bunch, I hope there isn’t another daft superfinal where the first round winner will easily get cancelled out(justice for Lorena Jankovi?!) would like to see Montenegro FINALLY send a female in 2019 as it’s been a whole decade since they last did so(also 6 years since a woman sung a part in their entry too) while eurofans keep moaning at Sweden who haven’t sent a female in only half a decade.
Didn’t Montevizija only have five songs last year?
It did, but probably more than 10 songs were valid
This sounds like a joke. You receive 27 entries (which is a very low number by itself) and disqualify 17 of them. While the disqualifications might be reasonable, and probably two or three entries came from that Montenegrin not-very-talented guy, they are still a signal that something is not working as it should. So I think they should go with an internal selection.
Montenegro only needs a good entry though, so I wouldn’t rule them out for now.
Last year’s national final actually went pretty well. Had some good entries.
Feeling pretty positive.
Instead of throwing 17 entries away, they should contact the songwriters and performers that submitted them and actually work on improving those songs. Also the “entertaining and popular music” rule should be removed. Let people submit in whatever genre they want. The language rule should also be removed. For a small country like Montenegro their criteria is too high. This year instead of wasting people’s time and money they should just pick their entry immediately out of those 5 that make it trough to the nf, and not eliminate 2 first. It puts artists under even more stress in performing… Read more »