They’re the European nation that staged one of the most successful turnarounds at Eurovision ever, moving from six straight non-qualifications and two years of non-participation to back-to-back Top 4 finishes.
And while Bulgaria left our beloved song contest following the 2018 contest, there’s now hope they may soon get back in the game.
That’s after Bulgaria’s official Twitter account — ever the source of speculation and intrigue — revealed that a decision on a possible return will be made by the end of September.
Decision about #Eurovision 2020 is still pending and is expected to be communicated until the end of September.
— BNT Eurovision Bulgaria ?? (@bg_eurovision) August 8, 2019
Naturally Eurofans were shocked when Bulgaria announced that they would skip Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv because of financial difficulties — even if it wasn’t their first hiatus.
After years of setbacks, the Bulgarian broadcaster decided not to send a candidate to Copenhagen in 2014. They skipped Vienna a year later too.
But then came the glory years. In 2016 the country returned with Poli Genova — its 2011 act who had been eliminated in the semis. Her song “If Love Was A Crime performed extremely well: it received 307 points and finished in fourth place in the final. This was Bulgaria’s highest final ranking ever, a record that was immediately improved on a year later when 17-year-old Kristian Kostov sang “Beautiful Mess”. Kostov won his semi-final and finished second in the grand final. In 2018, Equinox also made it to the final with “Bones”, generating a lot of buzz before ending up in 14th place.
But after three very successful years, and a change of priorities among BNT’s new leadership, Bulgaria announced it wouldn’t participate in Eurovision 2019 in Israel. The broadcaster put it down to financial priorities, like the increased costs for foreign productions, buying more rights to sporting events, increasing the salaries of employees at BNT and purchasing major film packages and programmes.
Apparently the broadcaster had amassed a debt of 50 million Lev, or about 25 million euros. Given all of that, if Bulgaria does return to Eurovision it is likely that the financial onus would fall heavily on its act, their record label and private support.
Are you excited for the comeback of Bulgaria? What is your favorite Bulgarian entry ever?
The broadcaster has previously indicated they would again use internal selection instead of a national final to select their entry.
Let us know in the comment section down below!
Bulgaria became my favorite ESC county since 2016 and I supported them from Greece so I hope our neighbours will return (in 2018 I voted 20 times just them lmao)
Beautiful Mess isn’t just the name of Bulgaria’s most successful entry, it is now also the name to summarize Bulgaria’s ESC participation..
I think there will be exactly 40 countries.Bulgaria unfortunately not among them.
My dream would be Lebanon entering (sort of again): this song is brilliant!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iGgW9OrgcxQ
Also, Bulgaria has SO much talent! The chalga-scene alone: people might frown upon it, but people: they can sing!
CZECH REPUBLIC: 152 submitted songs.
Fast but it’s bad.Quantity does not mean quality.
Why’s everyone interested in quantity? Isn’t prefer quality over quantity. Let’s have 26 countries with quality songs. I’d get rid of many countries. We leave them traumatised by giving 0 points and we feel happy about that???
But who can decide which are those 26 quality songs? Each year weak songs come from different countries. A country can have a weak song one year, and a winner the next year. We can’t get rid of countries. And the ones traumatized by low points, it happens to be in big 5.
Organisers should internally pick up the best 21 (big 5 should automatically make it t to the final) entries and allow them to compete in a live broadcasted contest.
That is dumb. Countries fundamentally enjoy the experience of sending people to another country and at least getting the chance to perform there. They tried that strategy before in 1996 and it was a massive waste of time and money.
Things have changed ever since 1996. Why do people need to get traumatised because of political voting? I’m against that. Also, having bad quality songs deteriorates the reputation of of the contest. By contrast, having only bops in it will dramatically increase the interest towards it worldwide. Organisers can at least identify quality songs and let them through.
Aren’t they like, doing that already? Bad songs get eliminated in the semi-finals, and we are left with the best 26 in the final. That is literally the whole point.
Why do you need public humiliation of 15+ countries and their performers? Sometimes it kills performers’ career, not to mention evening to late-night trauma of the audience in eliminated countries?
Bulgaria can participate if they find sponsors. Is it the broadcaster itself in debt to EBU?
I worry about one thing : they want to copy Beautiful Mess, just like Cyprus wants to copy Fuego. It’s such a trap. This obsession can block a country for years.
I would live another participation of Sofi Marinova for Bulgaria with an ethnic song in Bulgarian.
Mihaela Marinova or ALMA (not the french one or finnish one) should rep bulgaria if they come back
They are not ready even if people want them to return.
They won’t retuen in 2020 and that’s a fact
In the end, they didn´t
I want a pop banger from Bulgaria but I don’t want BNT to become bankrupt… Hmm, there is no win-win situation.
Seeing Bulgaria back would be great, no doubt, but for now I’d be happy enough if all the countries from 2019 showed up to the party, cause with HRT (Croatia) stating that “they cannot confirm the participation” and record low viewing figures in Hungary it’s not that certain. And you can never rule out some unexpected turn of events (like it happened with Maruv or Ovidiu Anton). Also, could EBU finally invite Kazakhstan? Poor guys have been waiting for so long and would surely give us an act to remember if they got a chance.
Don’t worry about HRT and Croatia, they start thinking about Eurovision in September and they never confirm participation before September…I am from Croatia and I think that we will participate, but Dora probably won’t be held next year (The Voice starts on December 7th 2019 and ends on February 22nd 2020)
Send Manntra, please.
It will be like this: *ring ring* *ring ring* Borislav Milanov: “Hello?” BNT: “Hi Boris, here is the national broadcaster of Bulgaria. Since we achieved very good results with you from 2016-2018, we would like you to assign you again with the upcoming Eurovision. So would it be possible that you take the responsibility and the costs because we are financially short of cash? Boris: “I’m sorry but my wife Tamara Gachechiladze gave birth to our child some months ago and we are very busy with it.” BNT: “But you are a very good music producer and -” Boris: “NO!”… Read more »
There are plenty of other options left if BNT is willing to rise to the occasion like never before.
Bank of Russia: “Hello?”
BNT: “Hey, we really wanna spend insane amounts of money for god-knows-what to win Eurovision because that’s how it works, isn’t it? Could you help us dig an even deeper hole where we’ll be forever in your debt and we will in turn just replace all of our own stuff with Russia Today? Probably, nobody would even notice.”
Are you excited for the comeback of Bulgaria?
DUH!
What is your favorite Bulgarian entry ever?
IF LOVE WAS A CRIME… DUH! lol
And people left Love Unlimited and Water aside. This is pretty accurate.
three-time bankrupt broadcaster bnt better start looking for sponsors now. they could pull a san marino n leave the fees n all the costs up to the participant/sponsors, gery-nikol’s daddy could easily pay for bulgaria’s entire participation!
If they have the money then do it, but don’t go into further debt just to appease the fans. Didn’t they just declare bankruptcy a month or so ago?
Yes why not, they definitely should come back, bigger, better, and stronger to show all the other countries how to do it right. Plus considering Ukraine had a two year break to only come back and win, Plus Portugal I believe had a little break and came back and win, Maybe Bulgaria could have that same luck, to win and take everyone to Sofia 2021.
Ukraine had a one year break
If they’re going to send any old tut from local record companies, I’d rather they stay away until they can afford the innovative approaches that have served them well in recent years.
Yes!! Let’s not have something local! Let’s have American talent show rejects again for Bulgaria like in 2018!
Buying Symphonix songs is an innovative approach?
The comebacks came in waves, too. Year by year. 2010: The big one, of course, was Germany, turning around five years of mediocre finishes to snag a victory. Also, on a slightly lower scale, Belgium finally making it to the final, also with a pretty low-key song. 2011: Austria and Hungary returning and qualifying, plus the long-awaited and spectacular return of Italy. 2012: Sweden building on Eric Saade’s strong result in 2011 to finally top the scoreboard again. Plus, on a smaller scale, Albania managing to make the top five. 2013: The Netherlands turning around an increasingly dire non-qualifying streak,… Read more »
I would like to have them back if they’re in a stable enough place to return. Their comeback was one of the most triumphant ones in a decade full of them, even if the songs (save for If Love Was a Crime) never made much of an impression on me. Fundamentally, if they want to do it, the more the merrier.
Also, for what it’s worth, here are the countries that continually (or briefly) saw big old comebacks in the 2010s: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia (kinda), Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland. Said it before, I’ll say it again: the 2010s were the decade of the comeback, and the last three years were a bonanza of unexpected but spectacular comebacks (the triple-whammy of Portugal, Bulgaria, and Moldova at the top of the scoreboard in 2017; the load of returns to the final over established… Read more »
@Ahoy: Love you for that comment haha 😀 #Maastricht2020
Definitely a worthy country! I really wish to see them return to the contest as soon as possible
It’s better to stabilize their financial position first, considering they would probably do the Symphonix+SJB way again. Impromptu plans have bigger risk of failing and BNT is not in a good position for that.
Fine example of mismanagement: two years ago they wanted to host the contest, now they’re bankrupt without even doing it…something went wrong quite quickly.
Anyway, hope to see them back, most likely in 2021 though.
A fun summary. I can’t help loving the irony of it all, even though I’d rather have them in the game.
Your example is very inaccurate. Broadcasters spend tons of money for tv content, licences for events, sport, producercs, tv series and shows…also administration, salaries, equipment. Eurovision is just a 3-day boutique song format which is just a micro fragment from the broadcaster’ year tv programme. So if BNT is in depths it is mostly because of bad management in the years and it doesnt have anything to do with their ambition to win the ESC as every other country
Former yugoslav Republic of macedonia is the new Bulgaria in eurovision
We call it North Macedonia now. Why is this so hard to deal with?
Ignore, it’s simply to be provocative…
They won’t return. Let’s keep it real
There can only be one Balkan country with a historically shaky track record suddenly turning it around?
If Bulgaria returns and Kazakhstan debutant we would have 44 countries and I would love to see that record in my country.
Kazakhstan will compete one day but I think we have to wait at least 2-3 more years for that. It will definitely happen in the 2020s tho.
We don’t even if it’s even gonna be in Maastricht. Jumping to conclusions too sooner I see.
Please get your song from a different source this time, unless the offer is really awesome.
I hope so much they’ll come back next year. With Ukraine, we’d have 43 countries just like in 2018, it’d be so cool. And then seeing Kazakhstan and/or Kosovo making their debut. Then the US too, no I’m joking, lol.
Kosovo isn’t debuting – the EBU shut that down a few months ago. Kazakhstan, on the other hand, doesn’t feel totally unrealistic
That depends if Kazakhstan is sent a special invitation to participate like Australia. probably more likely than Kosovo, though I’m not banking money on it.