It’s likely the last national final to get underway in the 2019 season. Now Belarus‘s broadcaster BTRC has finally opened entries for the country’s national final, including the iconic live auditions. And this year, there will be no televote.
Entries for the contest are open now and will run until January 31, in just over one week. And things are moving quickly.
The broadcaster will again hold its infamous live auditions, when all entered songs are performed live in front of a panel of experts. While the panel usually listens to enough of each performance to get a good idea of what it offers, in some cases they cut short an act with a curt “Spaibo!”.
And in less than two weeks, we’ll know the competing finalists. The expert panel will decide the finalists on February 4th. Around ten acts will participate in the final, though that number isn’t definite.
The date of the grand final is not yet been confirmed, but the broadcaster has revealed one big change. This year, the winner of the final will be decided by jury vote alone. There will no longer be a public vote.
This decision might be for the best. In 2017, PROvokatsiya topped the televote but scored nil points from the jury. The jury vote ensured that Naviband would win and go on deliver an impressive performance at Eurovision. Last year, both jury and televote had ALEKSEEV as their favourites, but were radically divided on almost all the other performances.
M I H A I for Belarus?
The 2019 Belarus national final again has no nationality restrictions. And just as the 2018 edition attracted the attention of Ukraine pop idol ALEKSEEV, Eurofest fan blog reports that another foreign artist is focusing on Belarus.
Romania’s Eurovision 2006 star M I H A I is said to be entering his song “Baya”. M I H A I had originally planned to enter “Baya” into Romania’s Selecția Națională, however he later withdrew from the contest, saying he was unhappy with the way the contest had been organised.
Applications for the Belarus 2019 national selection can be made through the BTRC website.
What do you think? Who would you like to see enter the national final? Should M I H A I bring “Baya” to Belarus? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!
It’s weird to me that the winner will be decided only by the jury. I’m not against the jury but why can’t they give power to the people?
Probably because there has been rumors that some of the contestants in the past few years rigged the televoting by purchasing multiple SIM cards to boost their votes, so juries would be a safer choice
Just confirmed that he’s in. I admire the perseverance but I really want an actual Belarusian to go (or, short of that, a Russian or Ukrainian)
So i think its safe to say that Mihai will represents Belarus this year…. oh my
We don’t know the other songs though. Maybe they can take a page from Estonia (and Slovenia, Sweden, Austria, UK, and I guess Italy, Romania, and Croatia technically) and send an opera singer? Belarus has a ton of great opera singers.
You’re kidding, right? Belarus can’t be THAT pathetic. :O
MIHAT left romanian selection because he wanted to go quickly in another country, because he was not willing to wait another year. Is fine, I don’t get the huge hate against him, but if he will represent Belarus, why is he not internally selected? Why BTRC gives hopes to the other contestants, like it did when Alekseev won? Why this style to have national selection anyway, even fake?
I don’t think it’s TVR :))
Is Belarus copying San Marino now? We need to see more Belarussian performers like NAVIBAND.
Wait i’m confused is this Romania or Belarus? TVR is Romania and BTRC is Belarus.
Mihai should accept the fact, that he had his time already.
Hmmm… so what’s the point in having a national final anyway? It’s just a televised internal selection. 100% systems (either jury or televoting) almost never are effective. All recent winners (except Conchita) were selected through a national final with both jury and televoting. It’s sort of a simulation of the big contest in May.
Good riddance. Can’t ever trust those fickle public votes
Maybe tayanna?
it would be really shocking twist… though after Alekseev’ story i wouldn’t say it’s impossible… Ukraine has enough talents for outsourcing lol
Knowing that most of the contestants have been rigging the televote all these years by purchasing SIM cards, this is an intelligent decision. On the other hand, the period for receiving entries is very short, they may have agreed to send an artist but they still want to do a show, so having just the jury will ensure their chosen artist is the winner. For any country, this would be rare, but we are talking about Belarus. Also, MIHAI withdrawed from Selectia Nationala because the selection process wasn’t clear, but now he wants to join an even more unclear national… Read more »
It not him who wants it, it’s his fans who are begging him to do this.
Still, though.
Wait, so both Belarus and Romania’s broadcasters are called TVR and Romania wants to send one of their singers to the Belarussian selection? Damn, that’s confusing.
It’s probably a typo. Their broadcaster is BTRC.
Oh, okay, that makes a lot more sense haha
The broadcaster is BTRC under the official name on EBU, but their websites are all under tvr.by, so that’s probably where the confusion started
Can’t they have a selection that is not a mess for once? Apparently not
Ff just save money and do an internal selection
I can see why they decided to select by 100% juries tbh, 100% televoting flopped in 2016 and they didn’t achieve an outstanding result by having 50/50 jury and televote throughout the years. Trying a new method might not be a bad thing at all.
But if it is 100% jury, then why televise the thing? That is my question. The viewers are not deciding it, so there is no reason to watch. Just my 2c.
Belarus isn’t even trying to be discreet with their …questionable selection methods LOL
*A national final wants to just use a jury* yeah that could lead to an interesting result
*Belarus wants to just use a jury* oh Mihai’s already agreed to buy all the jury votes
Regarding the voting, I have no clue what to think. On the one hand, I am alway pro-televoting. On the other hand, in countries like Belarus, manipulation of that is very likely, as a general rule almost. But then again, isn’t that the case with their jury as well? So… I’m at a loss here.
Televoting sucks anyway. In national finals it usually favors the artists with bigger fan base and the rich ones who are able to vote for themselves multiple times. While in the real contest it’s all about the diasporas.
I’m really worried about what they could possibly send, let’s just hope the acts peforming the less exciting songs won’t have any jury bias. Also Belarus is a big country, who has a lot of great singers, so sending a foreigner especially MIHAI. I hope Kattie is competing, after winning X Factor Latvia.
Kattie said she would not participate in the selection. She is now working in Finland on Sony Music on new tracks.
Belarus is better than this. Everyone is better than this.
Ok, at least Ukraine is geographically close to Belarus. But they aren’t a tiny country, so it’d be really odd to send a Romanian. Give it a rest, Mihai.
People in Ukraine after Tayanna’ withdraw yesterday, start saying she could represent Belarus this year, i hope its only crazy speculations and she will not follow Alekseev’ path…
Are TVR suggesting that public votes in Belarus are redundant?