It’s the national final that Romania has used to select its Eurovision act since its 1993 debut. Now Romanian broadcaster TVR has confirmed that it will return to using Selecția Națională for 2022 after internally selecting its entry for Eurovision 2021.
The broadcaster confirmed that it would produce a 2022 edition of Selecția Națională to select Romania’s entry for Turin. Details of the national final format have not yet been confirmed, however TVR says it will have information at the end of the week.
Selecția Națională 2022 project manager Iuliana Marciuc said:
“I am glad that I will relive the emotions of the Eurovision competition and I hope that the return to the national selection system will be auspicious. A competition format attracts performance and offers a chance to every artist who wants to represent their country on the stage of the biggest music competition in the world.”
“For me it is a great challenge, I have the experience of several national teams, I had the honour to be the head of the Romanian delegation and I strongly believe in our ability, of the TVR team, to obtain a new qualification in the Eurovision final.”
The broadcaster launched the Selecția Națională with a flashy promotional video, highlighting past acts from Romania’s golden age of Eurovision success.
Romania and Selecția Națională
Selecția Națională has been used to select Romania’s Eurovision entry since its 1993 debut. However the format of the show tends of change from year to year. In the past decade the show has involve a single grand final, one semi-final and a grand final, and multiple semi-finals with a grand final.
In 2020, singer Roxen was internally selected. At Selecția Națională, she performed five songs with a jury and televoters selecting the entry for Eurovision.
In recent years, the Eurovision Song Contest has drastically fallen in popularity among Romanian viewers. The 2021 grand final attracted only 178,000 viewers — a tiny 0.9% of Romania’s population. Compare this with the 138,000 fans who tuned in in Iceland (38%), or the 141,000 (10.6%) who tuned in from Estonia. A revamped Selecția Națională may renew interest in Eurovision among Romanians.
What do you think? Who would you like to see competing in Selecția Națională 2022? What sort of entry should Romania send to Eurovision 2022? Tell us your thoughts below!
I am surprised this is returning, especially considering what happened to the programme in 2019 (Mihai withdrawing, everything with Laura Bretan, the jury stuff etc.). It wasn’t doing the broadcaster any favours whatsoever in terms of wider PR, so what has changed since?
Yeah… Iuliana Marciuc says blah blah blah :))
Get ready for a very bad choice of song and artist.
There are lots of competent artists in Romania, both popular and unknown, but they will almost never work with TVR
Hope Bella Santiago participates – her Filipina fire could bring the contest to romania
if they have multiple artists yes. I still cant forget Roxen singing chery red and giving us nothing. Like literally nothing.
i think this is the correct choice. romania has a solid eurovision curriculum aside from 2018-21, they achieved all their past successes thru their national selection. they can get back on top easily.
So many national finals next year! We love to see it! ??
Only 10 percent watching in Estonia, less than 50 percent watched in Iceland. Eurovision is going down all over Europe I assume, right?
Well, you’re not considering that may be the reason Estonia and Romania had lower viewing figures it’s because they didn’t make it to the final, so the audience has less incentive to watch Eurovision. Why watch something when your country isn’t even in the final? Iceland has a very small population, so that percentage might actually be a pretty impressive chunk of viewership.
Definitely not in Norway. We had our most popular artist to represent us in Rotterdam, and the grand final got the highest share since 2010 when we hosted.
Not right, maybe for these countries, but overall each year Eurovision increases its audience, so I don’t get your point.
That doesn’t take into account delayed viewing and on-demand.
Unsure if this approach will bring success, i mean they tried it in 2018 and 2019 and it didn’t work out but i guess you never know (see 2017).
I believe the internal selection of young artists like Roxen was a good step, they had very good songs in 2020 and she would have done well in 2020 but Amnesia and the live performance were clearly not good for Eurovision.
I feel like the problem with Romania’s recent effort wasn’t the song, but Roxen’s lack of confidence. Her anxiety took its toll on her vocal delivery and that’s what caused her to stay in the semifinal. With a stronger performance she could’ve easily made the cut.
you could say the same about blanche… yet, she connected amazingly with the public. roxen’s problem was really just the performance, there was too much going on.
It showed how enduringly popular city lights was even though it wasn’t the most perfect performance.
Blanche’s singing was perfectly, necessarily flawed. It’s like watching Lana Del Rey’s live. A lot of vocal flaws, but it only adds to aesthetic. Not Roxen’s case.
you’re 100% right – her voice is very unique in many ways – same in germany 2019 with lilly among the cloud – her little bit broken voice was no sickness what some people thougt,it is her trademark – very unique,too.
As for Blanche, I’d say her somewhat fragile vocals even helped her performance in a rare, strange way.
Indeed! For some reason, her shaky vocals even made her whole performance better
you forget one important thing – blanche song “city lights” was a lot better,one of these very rare pop pearls at the ESC.
Well, Romania has been using a national final since the beginning of their Eurovision participation history, and while they’ve had mixed fortunes in the grand final, It’s only recently in the last three years that they started to Fail to qualify. It’s actually impressive that Romania has such a long qualification track record until recently. It’s really sad to see them struggling recently. I believe Romania would’ve qualified in 2020, but they really messed it up this year. Let’s hope they can do better.
Yes, very sad. I could have lived with Romania qualifying and doing well in 2018, 2019 and 2021. Moreover when there were less worthy Voices from other countries.
in 2019 there was a potential top5 maybe ESC winner song but sabotaged by…
WIWIBLOGGS! I guess you mean the one song from The little opera girl or the one from Bella Santiago. Those could have easily give a good position in the final but William and Deban weren’t the best judges I should say
Maybe your forgetting that both William and Deban gave Bella Santiago their 10 points? As did 3 of the other jurors. Bella came very close to winning but didn’t make it because Emily Deforest suspiciously gave her nil points (wtf!!!!) and televoters put that heavy metal band in second place ahead of Bella (also wtf!!!!) A car crash national final for many different reasons
the mainreason was in my opium the very strange voting system – televoting has had only one seventh of the total voting – so not very much influence and 2 WB members (one seventh each) have had a lot of power and they have used it for their agenda.
what is not known:
did the two WB members know how much influence they had through the strange voting system or not?
normally you sitting (maybe often) in the jury and think,ok jurys 50 % and televoting the other 50%.
the opera girl was meant.
I was wondering what Romania was doing for Eurovision 2022 and reviving their national selection came to mind. Turned out I was right, and I hope that it can help Romania make a comeback to the final next May. That said, there’s one thing I am worried about. It isn’t addressed in this article, but another article about Romania’s return to a national final stated that there’s a bishop. Will open on November 26 and close on December 10. That’s only about three weeks, and I’m concerned that may not be enough time interested artists put together something for their… Read more »
The bishop should represent the Vatican, they are EBU members, this is his dream.
i absolutely adore singing clergy. we had a nun win the voice of italy a while ago and even though i had an irreligious upbringing i can’t help but find singing nuns and priests endearing. i hope he wins !
Don’t forget the perennial classic, my lovely horse by a pair of Irish priests.
And a bunch of nuns tried out for Malta some years back. Bless me sister!