Spain’s Operación Triunfo tends to be a very intense emotional rollercoaster and today another chapter of that telenovela is happening. The official OT Twitter account announced today that there’ll be a surprise about Eurovision at 13.30 CET — the contestants will receive their songs for the OT Eurovision Gala!
The tweet that sparked the drama was published early in the morning, but it just mentioned a surprise regarding Eurovision coming in the afternoon.
?? ¡Buenos días amiguitxs! ? Pinta que va a ser un día intenso y lleno de sorpresas. A las 13:30h MUY ATENTXS ? ¡Que tengáis un feliz martes! #OTDirecto11DIC pic.twitter.com/XgUfzpMB5y
— OT 2018 (@OT_Oficial) December 11, 2018
Meanwhile, RTVE’s account for Eurovision wasn’t much clearer about what’s to come…
A las 13:30 horas, sorpresas eurovisivas en el 24h de OT! #Eurotemazo ??? https://t.co/G9Wabh0W85
— eurovision_rtve (@eurovision_tve) December 11, 2018
But the OT live channel in Youtube broke the news: the contestants are being given the songs at 13.30! Or at least, that’s what the timetable says:
According to that, today we’ll probably only know the titles and the very basics of each songs. We expect to have another “reparto de temas” where the OT professors will assign their entries to each contestant, and they’ll later start experimenting with their voice tones.
As it’s on Tuesday and tomorrow there’s Gala 12, don’t expect the contestants to make a big deal about the song today, as they face the semifinal of OT tomorrow. In fact, the Eurovision gala won’t happen until January, but the contestants will have to record the songs earlier.
Watch the song reveal live on the OT live stream, at 13:30 CET, today.
The OT Eurovision Gala
While only six acts remain in OT 2018 (Alba Reche, Famous, Julia, Miki, Natalia and Sabela), the OT Eurovision Gala will be open to all 16 competing acts from the 2018 series.
From the 1000 or so entries received, only 20 will be finally paired with the 16 contestants of OT 2018, including those who have already been eliminated from the show. Ten songs will come from the ones submitted online and ten more from internally selected compositions. In all cases, authors could name their preferred contestant to sing their song, but this is not binding.
The 16 OT contestants will record demos of their potential Eurovision songs and they’ll be made available online. Then it’s up to the audience to vote for their favourites, with the top three going straight to the Eurovision Gala. Up to seven more will make the final cut, as selected by a professional jury. This will form a total of ten songs that will battle it out in the Eurovision Gala to be Spain’s choice for Tel Aviv. The Eurovision Gala is expected to be held sometime next month.
What do you think? Which OT 2018 acts would you like to see in the Eurovision Gala? What sort of song should Spain send to Tel Aviv? Sound off below!
It looks like the spanish audience already has their favorites… huge mistake. Last year they thought Agoney and Amaia&Alfred were the best choice for eurovision, and it turns out that they weren’t. You should wait and hear the songs first before judging. I bet everyone will turn down Miki or Carlos, even if the song and performance is good for ESC. I see spanish people already saying that they’re going to vote for famous or damion, even without hearing the songs. This is terrible.
It appears to me that OT is just OT. It cares more about it’s favorites winning than the actual Eurovision potential. I don’t think the OT production really cares about Eurovision but more about their rating. Nothing bad about it. In the end of the day, this is what people live off. It’s just a terrible format for Eurovision because nothing about it is Eurovision specific. There is no point in this Big Brother setup. There is no point of letting only people choose their winner (what about the juries, where are they?) And there is no point recruiting pop… Read more »
I don’t get why some countries such as Spain, Malta, Georgia go down the route of talent/reality show! It’s the worst format of choosing a Eurovision song in my opinion. The format is a mess!
Spain wins my award for the worst NF format! Giving the singers a song without them getting a say is poor! RTVE should be ashamed of themselves!
Exactly!! This will end terribly, many spanish people already have their favorites and will vote for them no matter what. Just like last year.
Because it worked for Spain for the three seasons they used OT as a selection.
And clearly the format has turned out well for Israel after four years of it’s revamped Rising Star.
Overall, no selection method is a guaranteed success straight out of the gate.
Whatever the OT Eurovision GALA line-up will be… the song that comes 3rd will be a huge domestic hit with some international airplay while whoever wins will be overhyped by nationalist Spaniards and flop in Tel Aviv placing bottom 3 on televote, easy deja vu!
To be honest I have very low expectations from them. Hopefully, they’ll surprise me. Good luck!!
The video of the Eurovision songs distribution already has about three times more dislikes than likes and it was posted less than two hours ago. Oh, the DRAMA.
And people on twitter going crazy along with ex-contestants (and not just the ones that didn’t get a song). Eurodrama season is officially open I guess.
Edit: And now the video has 2.7k likes and 10k dislikes.
And the worst part is…if MIKI or Carlos get a better song than the others, they wont get chosen because people hate them and think this whole thing was unfair. They will vote for Famous or Noelia because these 2 know about ESC and said they wanted to go. This is ridiculous, sobral never showed interest and won the contest.
Their hate is insoportable… How can they judge without hearing the songs?
From the livestream: 17 songs listed, all with Spanish titles, and according to one of the contestants, all in Spanish. Also the first one can be heard faintly in the background 😉
When we can listen or to vote to all songs?
I
On 20th December you can listen a 1 minute demo
No idea, that’s the worst of all. On Sunday, they will be recording a first demo, and then viewers will vote their three favorite songs on TVE’s website based on one-minute snippets of said demos, which will be published on December 20, after the OT finals.
Well My guess will be that famous julia and noelia
Will go first to the gala.
Miki and sabel will be chosen too.
Marta carlos juan and 2 more…
I would like to say I have high hopes, but seeing how confusing the process has turned out to be, I don’t. Anyway, here’s the full list of the 17 chosen song titles, and who they have been given to, as published on TVE’s website: – “Hoy vuelvo a reír otra vez” (Noelia) – “Vuelve” (Marta) – “Nunca fui” (Carlos Right) – “Qué quieres que haga” (Julia) – “Qué será luego” (Alba Reche) – “Nadie se salva” (Miki & Natalia) – “A tu lado” (Joan Garrido & Marilia) -“No puedo más” (Famous) – “Se te nota” (Carlos Right) – “Dímelo… Read more »
And two little extra details I noticed… there are three less songs than initially announced, and Dave, África and Alfonso are already out of the running, since they haven’t even been given a song at all.
RECEIVE? They’re just going to get the songs and they have to sing them without a say in the composition? I-
They’ll probably just hear demos firsthand before making the needed adjustments matching any of the contestants’ vocals.
It’s always like that in OT. Surprisingly, it sort of worked the first three years.
I mean, that’s how it worked in general in the early 2000s, but now the industry is in a different place.
Most likely the songs were written with the contestants in mind.
Please let Emma Sandström’s entry be in! 🙂
I heard it got rejected!
A song written be the graceful ruth lorenzo and sung by one of these contestants? Sorry for her talent.. these singers are way to meehh…
I think it is a song that went for noelia.
2 big voices and a bit dram queen on stage (in a good way).