We haven’t heard much lately about the Swiss selection process for Eurovision 2020, but behind the scenes, the things are running at full blast. The Swiss broadcaster SRF has now revealed that Switzerland‘s act for Rotterdam will now be revealed in March 2020.
The broadcaster confirmed to Swiss fan site douzepoints.ch that it will present Luca Hänni’s successor sometime in March 2020. It is likely to be earlier in the month, as the deadline for Eurovision 2020 songs is March 9th.
Back in September, the broadcaster confirmed that 515 songs had been submitted to the broadcaster for their 2020 internal selection process.
Switzerland’s selection process for Eurovision 2020
From there, a 100-member audience panel and a 20-person international expert jury will rate both the song submissions and artists. The two panels will also make the final decision as to the lucky artist and song that will make it to Eurovision. The audience panel and expert jury will have a 50/50 vote split.
Things are a lot quieter this season compared to last year. Back then, there was plenty of fan speculation that well-known singer Luca Hänni was one of the shortlisted acts for Tel Aviv. This year, however, rumours are scarce.
Douzepoints.ch asked the German-Swiss broadcaster SRF what their next step would be in selecting Switzerland’s act for Rotterdam. A spokesperson said, “Right now we are testing which singers fit to which best-ranked songs out of both juries the most. We are not just happy about the number of submissions we got but also about their quality.”
While the broadcaster did not say how many singers or songs are still in the game, SRF confirmed that both the singer and song will be presented in March 2020. Towards the end of the year, the broadcaster will show interviews members of both the public and expert juries.
Earlier this year, SRF announced that there won’t be any restriction about whether an act has a Swiss connection or not. Singers and songwriters from any country could enter. The submitted songs won’t be made public during the selection process.
In 2018, the broadcaster confirmed that it would switch to an internal selection instead of using their national final Die Große Entscheidungsshow. Luca Hänni, the lucky winner of this selection, represented Switzerland with “She Got Me”. He took Switzerland to the grand final for the first time since 2014. There he placed fourth, only six points behind Russian star Sergey Lazarev.
What do you think about Switzerland’s selection process? Who would you like to see represent Switzerland in Rotterdam? Tell us your thoughts below!
luca hanni please again !! He is the best Swiss performer and should have won in 2019! But who says Luca can’t compete again! Serbia is forever with Luca
“…there won’t be any restriction about whether an act has a Swiss connection or not. Singers and songwriters from any country could enter. ”
Just for fun, I’m expecting South Korean girl group from Yuehua Entertainment, Everglow, to represent Switzerland next year. They just have to submit an English song for Rotterdam because not everybody understands Korean.
Not everybody understands French, German, or Italian either! Doesn’t mean it can’t make for a good song.
Are Switzerland preparing their Third Victory??? I hope it so much!!! I would love a Modern Eurovision on Swiss Land
I hope they keep the momentum going. They and North Macedonia had two pretty spectacular comebacks after years of lousy results so I hope they aren’t flukes. (Same for Iceland and San Marino – proud of my little underdogs!). Says a lot about the unpredictability of Eurovision these days. This time last year, nobody could’ve predicted that Switzerland was going to finish top-five, North Macedonia would win the jury vote, or San Marino would finish TOP TEN with the televote.
12 points, Joe, 12 points!
North Macedonia was a victory for the juries, San Marino was a victory for the televote, Switzerland was a victory for both.
No the turks was a victrory for San marinos 19th place. Serhat is a turk and we have a lot of turks that vote for a turk.
I’ll give you Albania and Azerbaijan, but if that diaspora was as much of a thing as people said it was going to be, no way would Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, or France have snubbed it (which they all did – I think France even had it in last place).
(Also: come for Duncan, come for Salvador, come for Secret Garden, come for any of the acts I hold near and dear to my heart. But I will not hear one word said against San Marino. They have done nothing to you and they mean a lot to me. Leave them be. None of that nonsense outta you.)
Not to mention Portugal winning, Cyprus coming second, Russia not qualifying. Indeed Eurovision is unpredictable. The only decent assumption you can make nowadays is three of the big 5 being in bottom 5.
True, UK and Spain are the main ones at the bottom, France and Germany all depends on the song, Italy placing bottom 5 is rare.
it does help that all four countries brought their best entries in a long time. Switzerland best since 2014, North Macedonia best since 2012, San Marino best since 2014, Iceland best since 2014. Hope they all can keep it up, as Czech Republic had a very strong comeback in 2018 and kept up the momentum since. I actually see Czech Republic winning this decade.
Okay, not surprised.