It’s game on in Dublin! Today RTÉ Entertainment in conjunction with RTÉ 2FM have announce that Ireland will be taking part in the 65th Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam, Netherlands in May 2020. In a statement sent to wiwibloggs, the broadcaster writes:
“The ESC is the world’s biggest live music show and one of the most popular annual television events on the planet. This year’s Eurovision Song Contest, hosted by KAN Public Service Television in Tel Aviv, Israel reached over 180 Million viewers in Europe with tens of millions more watching on social media platforms worldwide.”
“The show is particularly popular with youth audiences and younger adult viewers throughout Europe (over 45% viewership share for the Grand Final) and as such RTÉ wants to put in place a three year strategy aimed at identifying and encouraging contemporary Irish artists and songwriters with the talent and ambition to compete and succeed in this highly competitive environment. This is a rare and valuable opportunity for artists and songwriters to gain exposure on a global scale. Although we wish to encourage and identify promising new talent for the future, we do require artists to have prior experience of performing in public in front of large crowds. Confidence and attitude are definite advantages.”
Songwriters
“If you are an accomplished songwriter with a proven track record of success in the music industry we would like you to submit a song to be considered to represent Ireland. All songs received will be considered by a panel of music industry experts who will draw up a shortlist of potentially suitable songs. RTÉ is also actively seeking songs from established writers and reserves the right to select/commission a song to represent Ireland at Eurovision 2020 from outside this process.”
Artists
“RTÉ Entertainment and RTÉ 2FM also want to hear from established contemporary, professional artists who have the drive and ambition to succeed and who wish to showcase their talents to a global audience of over 200 million. Artists putting themselves forward must have intrinsic and obvious appeal to the core youth audiences who make up a significant amount of Eurovision viewers and fans. RTÉ will consider all suitable artists who put themselves forward. RTÉ also reserves the right to approach artist(s) directly. All expressions of interest will be treated in the strictest of confidence.”
“RTÉ 2FM through 2FM Rising has a track record in promoting and supporting emerging Irish talent including such acts as Dermot Kennedy and Fontaines DC and RTÉ 2FM and RTÉ Entertainment will work with and support the selected song and artist through its various platforms and will develop a promotional schedule with the selected artist(s) prior to Eurovision 2020.”
“Songs submitted must strictly comply with the rules of Eurovision and RTÉ reserves the right to arrange, produce or otherwise alter any song selected for the purposes of Eurovision.”
“Songwriters/composers may only submit ONE song (including co-writes) for consideration. If more than one song per composer is submitted only the first song received will be considered. Songs must be no longer than 3 minutes in duration.”
“Compositions submitted for consideration (lyrics and music) must not have been commercially released and/or publicly performed – including online video platforms or social networks – in full or in part, before September 1st 2019.”
In all cases RTÉ will have the final say on which song and artist will be Ireland’s 2020 entry.
If you would like to submit an entry, it must adhere to the EBU 2020 competition rules, a full list of which can be found here: www.eurovision.tv/page/about/rules
Entries will ONLY be accepted by email as an MP3 (192 kbps) attachment.
Entries will not be accepted on CD, cassette or by Wetransfer, Soundcloud, Dropbox or any other format.
Please email entries to [email protected]
The closing date for submissions is 5pm on Friday 25th of October 2019.
If someone submits a song and the artist/songwriter is not being promoted by RTE 2FM – are they less likely to be selected? I would have thought it was better to select the song – no matter if they were known to 2FM or not – then let them help choose the singer to suit the song.
im glad they finally got thr insight artists need to be experienced…. so maybe next years irish entrant can sing well live?
Emma Langford for Ireland 2020!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic6jwR0cIus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A7VypH6zzA
The thing is, Eurovision is still seen as very risky, uncool and crap by so many Irish people. It’s still badly suffering from those years where the crazy and weird entries would do really well. I think it turned so many artists and fans off the Eurovision Song Contest. We’ve also had so many bad results over the years and some people choose to blame the rest of Europe rather than looking internally. RTE badly need to send someone who’s already popular in Ireland with a decent song. That way, they’ll already have Irish fans on their side and hopefully… Read more »
Alessia Macari is ready for ESC 2020
omg shes fabulous. 12 points from italy too maybe!
justice for rahrah! 22 was a great song, had anne-marie sung it it would’ve become a cute hit.
That was my A Matter of Time this year: a song I loved dearly pre-contest but was handled so badly the night of I can’t even rewatch it. What a shame.
slaying in the bottom of the well
I quite liked 22 and thought that Sarah did a great job with it, but quite liking isn’t enough these days. Sarah deserves another pop though, she has a lovely, smokey voice.
Ready to email my debut single, Slay Honey. Inspired by William and Deban
The best strategy is to finally kick out that HoD and replace him with someone competent, someone who doesn’t delude himself to think that an entry like “22” could stand a chance of finishing any higher than dead last or second-to-last in the semi final.
Off-Topic:
Italy, Russia, Moldova and Hungary usually confirm very late, but what’s with Poland, Latvia and Armenia? Bulgaria and Turkey won’t probably return.
Is it possible that both Latvia and Poland might even withdraw as well, due to financial difficulties and poor results, respectively?
I guess it will be again another 41/42 with the same countries.
Why can’t we just reach the 44 at least once?
And btw, Ireland, I think you should really consider your choice again, especially when using almost the same process as last year which didn’t bring you lots of success..
Latvia actually confirmed their participation. And the only country that could withdraw is Poland I guess(because they are hosting JESC), and Bulgaria might come back, we don’t know nothing about it.
Lol guys you are really mad of course Poland don’t withdraw
I did not say that, I asked if this could be the case..
Of course they won’t withdraw.
So hosting JESC means Poland withdraws from Eurovision 2020?
no, it means they aren’t focusing on preparations for esc 2020 yet so they haven’t been putting out statements about it
Latvia will participate. They just don’t know if they can afford a national final, and may do an internal selection or a smaller national final. Poland obviously won’t withdraw, if they couldn’t afford ESC they wouldn’t have hosted JESC.
Just because some countries haven’t announced they’re participating sometimes just means no one has asked them yet. They’re not gonna put out a statement just for ESC fans to make everyone know they’ll be there next year.
Be reminded that Poland withdrew in 2012 because of the costs hosting EURO2012. Of course, Junior Eurovision cannot be compared with EURO economically, but still……
Slay this, slay that… You guy need to broaden your vocabulary. It gets really boring seeing the same ‘catchphases’ over and over again. Compliment ‘slay’ with some fresh alternatives! This is a very nicely worded statement, but how is the method different to previous Irish efforts this decade? What systems are in place? I remember Ireland have had national finals but most of the songs were rather bland and seem to be from the same songwriting teams (and on a shoestring budget!) I’m really hoping for something fresh and interesting from Ireland, no more Jedward or Louis Walsh blandness. How… Read more »
For people that are supposed to be “journalists”, they do have very limited vocabulary.
Indeed!
It looks like the main difference is that they are involving RTE 2fm and 2fm Rising, which is actually a really successful program of finding young Irish talent. It found Dermot Kennedy who is really successful now. I can’t guarantee that it’ll work, but at least its a good change.
A bit like BBC Introducing? Sounds promising. I wish the UK had stuck with that.
It is pretty similar to BBC Introducing.
sweaty they gon slay u in a more literal sense
Eh?
After your worst result ever, you stick to the exact same format? I’m sorry but there needs to be a full revival of the RTE delegation for Eurovision. Michael Kealy needs to be sacked, his track record for Ireland is appalling.
Unless Ireland have a brand new delegation, I don’t really have hope with them anymore!
It is not actually completely the same. They’ve involved the 2FM Rising program, which has a proven track record of finding and promoting young Irish acts with most of them finding a lot of success. It’s run by much younger producers than RTE on average. I won’t guarantee that it will work, but heavily involving them could really help.
I don’t see how this is much different than previous years?
rte two enterainment getting involved which found great upcoming artists before.
Which artists?
Artists like Dermot Kennedy and More it says on the rte website
I don’t really know much about Dermot Kennedy, but on first listen he seems like a mixture of Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi and The Script. Not for me.
An Irish mate of mine said us once that he thought Ireland seemed to be waiting for Sweden to reach win #7 to wake up. Maybe the alarm sounded earlier than he thought
Finally! I’ve been waiting for RTE to have a proper strategy in years and this sounds quite promising. Maybe I should even submit a song:-) Really hoping it works this year because I’d just love the Eurovision to be in my country after so many years . Honestly feeling quite excited now. YAY
How is it promising… it’s the exact same format as last years flop
It just sounds more enthusiastic . Like we don’t want to come last again
The exact same format that got Ireland’s worst result ever. .why don’t they scrap submissions.. they’re a waste of time and go to the artist themselves and let them have control over the song.
Also the same strategy that got the Netherlands their first win in 40 years though.
no netherlands had a different strategy
Did you not read it? They have changed it. They’ve involved the 2fm Rising, a successful program dedicated to finding and promoting young Irish acts and have found and made many successful names in Irish music. It’s gotta help somewhat, especially as those who work on the program are younger and more familiar with Irish music of today.
Will they also be looking for the song or are they just promoting it ?
They will be finding the artist and song first. Promotion second.
Oh good the article made it sound like they’ll only promote it. This is a good idea.
I agree. Especially looking at the artists they’re currently promoting. Most of them could do a better job than recently. Interestingly most are bands if that gives us any clues.