Israel is ditching X Factor as its national selection. Instead, its Eurovision 2023 artist will be selected behind closed doors in an internal selection. KAN revealed the news on their official Twitter account.
Israel: Eurovision 2023 singer will be chosen by internal committee
“KAN is getting ready for Eurovision 2023!”
“Israel’s next representative for the Eurovision Song Contest will be selected by a professional committee: 9 members, who will reflect a wide range of music styles.”
“Following the selection of the representative, a process will begin for the selection of the song.”
It’s not yet clear whether the song selection process will be done publicly, perhaps through a televised TV show, as was done for Eden Alene in 2021, or through another internal selection, as was done for Nadav Guedj, Imri Ziv and many others.
Israel at Eurovision 2022
Israel used X Factor as its selection method for its Eurovision 2022 song and artist. After over three months of auditions and shows, the grand final saw the final four artists – Inbal Bibi, Michael Ben David, Eli Huli, and Sapir Saban – battling for the ticket to Turin.
All four performed one cover of their choice and their Eurovision entry.
As you’ll recall, four finalists competed in two duels and then a second chance round. Three of them then moved onto the final where they performed their potential Eurovision song.
In an earlier show they had each performed two different potential Eurovision songs and the public and a jury chose which song they’d sing in the final.
The (somewhat convoluted) process resulted in Michael singing “I.M” at Eurovision. The song underwent a revamp ahead of the contest, but it wasn’t enough to reach the final.
Israel finished 13th, having come 11th with the jury and 13th with the public.
Do you think this is a smart move from Israel? Do you hope that the public will have a say in the song selection? Let us know in the comments box below!
KAN is getting ready for Eurovision 2023! ???
— KAN Eurovision Israel (@kaneurovision) June 12, 2022
Israel's next representative for the Eurovision Song Contest will be selected by a professional committee: 9 members, who will reflect a wide range of music styles. pic.twitter.com/yiWIvdyPxU
Perfect! Goodluck.
So glad Israel is taking this path, I was worried we’d only see new talent being sent to represent Israel and never any of their amazing established artists. Let’s have something ethnic like Idan Raichel or A-WA please!
Even Dennis Lloyd would be cool!
Yes! I need A-WA at Eurovision
Off topic but the live on tapes are gonna start getting released tomorrow : )
Rooting for Noa Kirel
X Factor is literally the worst way to choose the representative for Eurovision
Israel has a ton of singers to pick if they decide to go internal next year:
Hopefully one of them will give a better result than Michael Ben David… people today have no taste in music and that’s why Michael was eliminated…
No, that’s the reason he was chosen
No. An ESC representation should be given to someone who hasn’t blown up yet.
Not sure why the dislikes. I just prefer famous people to not be sent to ESC.
I mean, I’m not from Israel, but I’d personally prefer someone who’s already well-known (and current) in my country to represent us rather than sending in talent-show rejects, straight-out-of-X Factor or someone that no-one locally has heard of before unless the song is exceptionally good. It just makes this contest feel like it’s taken more seriously IMO. Israel has been sending in singers straight-out-of-talent shows since 2015 and it about time they send someone bigger and current for next year (Anna Zak, Noa Kirel etc).
It’s sad that they had to have this year’s outcome, but I’m glad they came to their senses.
Israel has quite a nice talent pool they can pick their future representatives from, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing how this pans out! 🙂
Choosing your Eurovision artist based on a reality-esque TV show is never a good move. The audience for these shows take in consideration things that are irrelevant to Eurovision success, such as the backstories of the contestants. It was a disaster for Spain in 2018 and 2022 was a disaster for Israel considering the quality of songs that was in their national final.
Picking a singer from a reality-esque show worked for us in 2015, 2016, 2017 sorta and 2021. It gave us a win in 2018 so. The next star was great, x factor sucked.
I’d stick with the next star but I’m good with internal.
I’m confused. I thought Israel was going to launch a new national selection for 2023. Am I missing something?
Cyprus is doing that, not Israel.
Ahhh, thanks!
lol no surprises there. Their new approach this year failed big time.
Internal selection is really the best way to proceed. They also chose Toy internally.
I’d also love to see a known name represent Israel or have their national final Kdam return but with a new version and voting.
i really miss their kdam national final, but this is a good way to go.
Honestly, an internal selection for Israel sounds AMAZING!
Ella Lee and Anna Zak would absolutely kill it at Eurovision. Israel has an insane amount of talent for such a small country, so they have a huge selection of artists to choose from. I’m pretty sure Israel will win again in a couple of years if they do go with an internal selection.
Anna Zak can’t sing live, and for the other pop girls I don’t think they would be interested as they’re “too famous” for that.
Cool, I hope this is the first step towards ESC countries no longer using lazily slapped together national finals instead of properly choosing an artist with a song specifically tailored for them. I hope Denmark, Croatia and Germany take notes
Makes sense, imagine if they end up again with someone that is trashy, desperate for attention and harasses contestants. Better to choose someone who is a true professional
Ok, Its maybe off topic and wiwiblogs doesnt allow me to add this coment somehow but here is a possibility that Slovakia might come back for 2023 :O
Where did you hear that!? 😮
“RTVS the Slovakian broadcaster could still decide to return to the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023 according to”
…. I cant put here the link or the name of other side, my comments are always deleted but copy this and u will find the Pages 🙂
nope, broadcaster said they’re not returning, financial and low viewing figures related reasons
But then they still waiting for a new elections of a new boss in a RTVS …so they said they can still come back after 10 years, same happened when they withdraw in 1999 and came back in 2009, now 2013 – 2023. Before, every year they said imediately – they are not coming back. But we will see. Now after Hungary, Russia and Belarus is out, Possibility of Czech and Macedonia to be out are also high… so maybe Slovakia, Turkey could be back and Lichtenstain might be too
As an Israeli, I am ok with this. Clearly MBD was way out of his depths here – not so much as a performer (he actually did well on that department) but overall. The recent process took young artists at the very beginning of their career and threw them on the biggest stage of the world. Granted, it worked with Netta (and with Nadav Guedj) but it’s a risk and honestly unfair to the artists.
(Eden Alene and Hovi Star also performed well, of course. I did not wish to imply that the artists were not up to the task. In fact, it is quite shocking how capable they all were – even Imri Ziv and Kobi Merimi.)
At least they won’t have the same level of embarrassment they got from this years entry
My country is going eternal?! Huh. Cool : )
Internal* Stupid uneditable wiwi comments lol.
I honestly think this is smart, since this at least helps ensure that the artist is coming to the contest with their own vision and could very well be an established name that can represent Israel in a good way on the international stage. Their selection this year was a whole mess. (At some point, they really ought to just do the Kdam again, but I imagine they really need to get established Israeli artists more invested in competing before they can bank on a lot of them wanting to participate. It’s like trying to relaunch the National Songfestival: yeah,… Read more »
I think we should have stuck with the next star but I’m good with an eternal selection.
internal*
Yeah. Ty.
Cyprus with national final , Israel with internal selection. Seems like things are about the change.
I’m not feeling this idea. Let’s be honest, if we check the last three years Top 3, and even counting how messy the Vidbir was, all of them were either National Final winners or Internal Selection chosen alongside the song, and all of them with the exception of Sergey and Chanel (so 7 out of 9), were heavily involved in the composition of the song. I can see their reasons to do it, most of us had IM at the bottom of the barrel, but choose someone and then slap them with some song you just got from God knows… Read more »
Nobody said how they will choose the song.. Maybe the artist will be involved
I hoped Israel would go back to the KDAM, a contest to select a contestant, similar to in Scandinavia.
Selecting an artist first before song is wrong. But in reality, many established artist in Israel would never agree to compete in a national selection unfortunately. So, that’s the time to bring someone with more experience.
What’s this obsession with established artists? Being famous in your country means nothing. Barbara Pravi, Gjon’s Tears, Go_A, Chanel, Sam Ryder, Duncan Lawrence, Cornelia Jacobs, Daði og Gagnamagnið, The Roop, Måneskin, Mahmood and so many fan favorites who did really good weren’t established. Focus on the song and the staging packet rather than an overpriced name.
I know Israel so I doubt this will happen.
I believe that by “established artists” they mean someone who’s generally known by the Israeli public and has *some* experience and artistic vision, Not necessarily someone who has a long career behind them, so equivalents of most of the names you mentioned are possible. I guess they’ll aim for someone popular in order to generate buzz, but they’ll factor Eurovision potential and suitability into the selection.
I do agree that the song is most important and wish they selected a full package of a song + artist.
Sad, I liked to see the israelian selection since years now, it was always epic and with quality songs. It means already one less NF for the next season.
I don’t like selections when the artist is chosen before the song. Whether it’s public or internal, choosing the artist first never makes sense to me.
S10/Duncan/CommonLinets/Saara Alto/Eleni has left the chat
Duncan was selected together with Arcade. He was just announced as an artist before the song got officially released.
s10, too
And Fuego was chosen before a matching singer was picked
I am not saying that this method can’t be successful. I am just saying that it makes less sense to me than choosing a song.
Netta was selected before Toy was even written, but in principle I agree.
Selecting a full package makes much more sense, and I believe they’re selecting an artist first not purely for professional reasons, but rather because they want to give the public the feeling that they have a say by throwing a televised national final of 3 or 4 songs, which is quite risky IMO.