Lithuania’s national final Eurovizijos dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka has a reputation for being long. But all that is about to change. Broadcaster LRT has released details of the revamped 2020 edition of the national final, including news that it will involve only SIX shows.
This time, the focus will be on quality over quantity. LRT’s deputy director-general Gytis Oganauskas commented, “We are shortening the selection for the sake of quality, with more carefully selected, more professionally presented works.”
This time, the national final will only involve six shows, putting it on the same scale as Sweden’s Melodifestivalen and Hungary’s A Dal. This is a stark contrast to the 2016 edition which involved a marathon ten shows. Back then, winner Donny Montell performed his song in six different shows.
The new format also suggests that fewer acts will be selected to compete in the contest. In the 2019 edition, a massive 49 acts competed, with initial heats involving around 12 acts. For contrast, Melodifestivalen has 28 competing acts while A Dal has 30.
The show will also have a new rule that limits acts to only one entry. The new rule follows the situation in 2019, where Monika Marija made it to the grand final with two songs, “Criminal” and “Light On”. She chose to face a €2000 penalty and withdrew “Criminal”.
The show structure will also change. The previously in-studio jury panel will instead watch the show on monitors outside the main studio. The jury will also no longer comment on the songs at the end of each performance. As well, audience votes will no longer be shown throughout the show — the overall totals will be revealed at the end of each show. These changes are being done to bring Eurovizijos Atranka closer to the format of Eurovision shows.
The broadcaster has formed a working group of experts who will oversee the selection process. The voting will also be monitored by an auditing company.
The winner of Eurovizijos Atranka 2020 will also be given financial support by LRT, to help with strengthening the Eurovision performance, including things such as staging, wardrobe, vocal technique.
While Lithuania has enjoyed a top ten result in 2016 with Donny Montell’s “I’ve Been Waiting for This Night” and a 12th place finish for Ieva Zasimauskaitė’s “When We’re Old”, it doesn’t always enjoy such results. In 2017, Fusedmarc finished near the bottom of its semi-final, while 2019 act Jurij Veklenko narrowly missed out on qualifying.
Entries for Eurovizijos Atranka 2020 will open this Monday, 30th September, and close on December 8th.
Eurovizijoz Atranka 2020 will run from early January to mid-February 2020.
What do you think? Are these changes a step in the right direction for Lithuania? Who would you like to see enter the revamped national final? Tell us your thoughts below!
They have finally listened to my prayers and comments on all possible social media! No jury comments and no intermediate voting results. Well done. I only wish that performances would be the same in selections and at the final, just as Sweden do. In this way it would be no “I’ll do whatever now and, if I’m lucky, I’ll do a bit better at the final” attitude.
Yes, i think because of those changes there is actually speculations that Lithuanian famous singer Gjan will compete in Eurovizijos atranka, most recently she said that she will be releasing English song soon. Also speculations are those that 2019-10-24 at her concert in Siemens arena she will announce something big that her fans will love.
Cancel national selection and bring back IEVA !
Oh yeah, finally! 6 shows is just enough. And I like more control over judges and them being silent – they were too biased to certain acts. Also I like the decision to not show public vote results until the end, because that induces a vote race. I hope this brings ACTUAL Lithuanian artists and not some underground rats to the selection, which have been hesitant of the length and unprofessional judges mocking professional artists.
i’ve read these news every year since 2017 but nothing’s changed lol
They truly deserved to go to Final this year, Jurijus was superb!
Maybe the staging was a little boring, but the song was great.
Hoping good things from Lithuania next years
Best from Spain
The amount of 50 SONGS we have in 2019 is just too big, even for an anniversary special, so I do hope they reduce the number of participants extensively. With the six shows that we will have, I think it’ll be better to have only 24 acts, having them compete by 8 in 3 heats, and advance 4 from each, then having 12 participants in 2 semifinals and advance 4 from each, then have 8 in the final and decide the song. I do feel they won’t really cut it that far, though.
Agree with the 1 song per artist rule. Agree also with reducing number of shows to improve some quality. Believe it or not, the biggest quality cut in Atranka started after the 1st round (half of the songs weren’t that made for ESC, honestly). What I miss the most is having a final of more than 10 songs, though. But I also love the approach of an 8-act final, with an equal focus on the artist as well as the song. I’ll miss also the jury comments. My Lithuanian is limited, but I love how intense they could get sometimes,… Read more »
Most Lithuanians absolutely HATE the jury comments. They often talk about some nonsense not related to actual singing or the performance. They always argue if the song suits the Eurovision “standard”, which is so stupid. Most people will be happy that they stay silent, as most juries have no relations to actual music industry – just some TV stars, actors, journalists.
I mean, it’s so long that it STILL doesn’t sound like quality over quantity but I’m surely hoping for that.
Finally, Lithuania is learning to cut this national final down to size. So it’s now about as long as Melodifestivalen, though I wonder how the shows are going to be broken up—Three heats, two semi finals and a final? It is also smart to put down a one song per single rule—No repeat of what happened this year. I hope this does result in a great entry for once from Lithuania—I would love to see it reach the top five for the first time or even win. It is still the only Baltic countries that hasn’t won eurovision yet (It’s… Read more »
I didn’t realize my proposed breakdown was so close to the A DAL National final lineup, but here we are. I don’t know if Hungary will do anything different considering they suffered their first Non-qualification in a decade, but we’ll see.
Lithuania would have won years ago if it’s not the selection format. Good mainstream Lithuanian artists would like to participate, but they hated the selection. This year is a lot better. I hope at least one of them participates. Also hope Monika Marija comes back!
Monika Marija told she’ll participate so did Aiste Pilvelyte
You know your national selection was endless when you cut it almost in half and it’s still the same size of the remaining biggest national selections! It seems all the changes are for better.
Finally a bit of news that everyone can be happy about!
Hope they stayed true to their words.
next time leave the light on