In recent months Israel’s national selection The Next Star for Eurovision has helped tied our post-Eurovision depression. A series of reports from the Middle Eastern nation teased NF participants, including LUKAH and Judah Gavra. And now the hype becomes real: Israel will become the second country (after Malta) to air episodes of their national selection in only two weeks!
According to Israel Hayom, the popular Israeli reality show will commence on November 23. So mark your calendar: the Eurovision season really is on.
Keshet 12, the channel that broadcasts the show every year, has now confirmed the news. A series of promo videos aired on the channel in recent days, along with the first episode date. Keshet is keeping the artists’ identities a secret for now. But several names have already dropped as you’ll know from our earlier reports.
Israel’s national selection format
We don’t know much about the format of the contest yet, but we’re going to assume it will follow the format of recent years. Even so, we should note that the Israeli broadcaster has announced some exciting (and less exciting) changes to the pre-selection.
- This year, singers that follow the Jewish practice of honouring Shabbat will not take part. This is a response to 2019 contestants Shalva Band, who, despite being real contenders, withdrew from the contest because of conflicts with the holy Sabbath
- ESC 2010 fan favourite Harel Skaat will be leaving the jury for good. The other judges will remain, with guest judges expected to appear throughout the season.
- As announced this summer, the song the artist will ultimately sing at Eurovision won’t be decided behind-closed-doors. Instead, a mini Kdam will determine that. This will be the first time since 2016 that the Israeli public will have a say about which song represents them. It’s been almost seven years since the last edition of Kdam and fans are starting to miss the old format. Under the Next Star for Eurovision format, however, the Israelis never failed to qualify for the grand final.
As for the regular show format, we’re expecting a slow, two month-long contest ending in either January or February. The first few episodes should cover the initial auditions, followed by a quick bootcamp. The Israeli NF will then follow the duel round/double elimination pattern until we’re down to a final four.
What do you expect from The Next Star for Eurovision this year? Do you think the old Kdam format will eventually return? Should it? Share your thoughts in the comment section!
The winner will be eden elena..she has no real contest. With a good song she can bring eurovision back to israel easily…
She’s an incredible singer but the song is key. If she’s given a dud like Made of Stars or Home, her flawless vocals won’t help her.
Agree…i hope she will get good songs but its not for sure
I like these changes
“ESC 2010 fan favourite Harel Skaat”
LOL he got less tele vote points in his semi then Sieneke.
he was a bookies’ favorite, but the public said NO to him
I should hope so. Sieneke handled her song much better than Harel handled his.
He definitely wasn’t a favorite of the general public, and rightly so if you ask me, but the fandom did love him. Milim came 2nd in the OGAE poll, and it seems that many still remember it fondly. I didn’t like the song even before the bad performance in Oslo, it’s pretentious and dull IMH, but many consider it to be a quality entry.
A one-artist Kdam has a 99% success rate (and 1% David D’or) but I think it’s the right move. Nine times out of ten, I think the people of a host country should have a say in their song choice, so I can understand why Israelis were annoyed at not helping to pick Kobi’s. It’s different with the Dutch I guess.
The last thing I want is the Dutch public have a say in what they want. We are doing very well with internal selections.
Oh, for sure. Not saying that’s a bad thing. It’s always reasonable to assume your broadcaster knows what it’s doing. Not always the case, but certainly with the Netherlands.
To be honest, i always find it quite hard to trust people like Jan Smit to pick the very best song for us… They chose great with duncan this year (which was mostly because of Ilse de Lange) but in other years their choices have been middle of the road with things like outlaw in em and walk along. The quality of submitted songs has probably risen since our Sieneke period, but we have to trust AVROTROS 100% on their people and song choices since we don’t get to hear anything beforehand.
OIE was 100% Waylon’s choice. And I still love the song. If only he had performed it like during the song presentation in DWDD.
And 6 out of 7 qualifications with three top tens and two top elevens is something a lot of countries can only dream of.
Teapacks also had a one-artist Kdam in 2007 🙂 I don’t really like that method TBH. It’s usually one relatively strong song plus two or three straw-songs that are there for the purpose of giving the public the illusion of choice. And while the Kdam is almost always rigged in favor of one song, the artist and the creative team have to divide their time and energy between several song instead of focusing on one. Another con is that the Kdam is usually a modest show with a smaller stage a lower production value comparing to Eurovision itself, which could… Read more »
And Mei Feingold. So ok, 97%. I remain optimistic. But you have good points.
hmm one-artist nfs are just unexciting to follow though, but yuh, better than nothing
I think this one is more exciting since there’s still a selection for the artist that’ll be even longer. If it’s an internally selected act, then yeah, it isn’t really exciting since we already know who’s competing, just not the song.