Category: VIDEO
22:00 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM LISBON 🇵🇹 THE FIRST FESTIVAL DA CANÇÃO 2019 SEMI FINAL
PORTUGAL – Festival da Canção 2019 will be the 53rd edition of Festival da Canção, the music competition that selects Portugal’s entries for the Eurovision Song Contest.[2] Three live shows will be broadcast during a two-week period: two semi-finals on 16 and 23 February and the final on 2 March 2019. The semi-finals will take place at RTP’s studios in Lisbon, while the final will take place at the Portimão Arena in Portimão.
The competition will feature sixteen songs written by professional and amateur composers, who will be also responsible for choosing the performer(s) for their entry. Each semi-final will feature eight songs from which four will advance to the final. Results during the semi-finals will be determined by a room jury panel (50%) and public voting (50%). In the final, the winner will be determined by the votes from regional jury panels (50%) and public voting (50%). For the third consecutive year, the competition had no language restrictions.
On 5 December 2018, RTP revealed the names of the sixteen participating composers: fourteen directly invited by RTP, one selected by Antena 1’s radio show MasterClass, and one selected from an open call.
The 51st Festival da Canção will consist of two semi-finals and the final. In each semifinal, eight songs will compete for four places in the final, with the qualifiers being determined by a 50/50 combination of votes from jury members, made up of music professionals, and a public televote. In the final, the winner will be determined by a 50/50 combination of votes from regional jury members and the public televote.
The first semi-final will take place at RTP’s studios in Lisbon, on 16 February 2019. It will be hosted by Sónia Araújo and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira.
20:45 CET | WATCH LIVE FROMM REYKJAVIK 🇮🇸 THE SECOND SÖNGVAKEPPNIN 2019 SEMI FINAL
ICELAND – Söngvakeppnin 2019 is the fourteenth edition of Söngvakeppnin, the music competition that selects Iceland’s entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. Ten songs in total will compete in Söngvakeppnin 2019, where the winner will be determined after two semi-finals and a final.
The two semi-finals will take place at the Háskólabíó conference hall in Reykjavík on 9 and 16 February 2019, with five songs competing in each. The final will take place at the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík on 2 March 2019, where top two songs from each semi-final will compete.
In addition to that, the Icelandic national broadcaster will reserve a right to advance a wildcard act to the final out of the remaining non-qualifying acts from both semi-finals.
RÚV opened a submission period between 20 September 2018 and 22 October 2018 in order for interested parties to submit their entries. The submitted songs were not allowed to exceed three minutes.
Songs have to contain lyrics in Icelandic for the performance in the semi-final, and be performed in the language they are intended to be performed at Eurovision in the final of Söngvakeppnin.
20:30 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM VILNIUS 🇱🇹 THE SECOND EUROVIZIJOS 2019 SEMI FINAL
LITHUANIA – Lithuania will participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Lithuanian broadcaster LRT televizija (LRT) will organise the national final „Eurovizijos“ dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka 2019 in order to select the Lithuanian entry for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel.
20:25 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM RIGA 🇱🇻 THE 2019 SUPERNOVA FINAL
LATVIA – Supernova 2019 will be the fifth edition of Supernova, the music competition that selects Latvia’s entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. The format of the competition will consist of three shows: two semi-finals and a final. The two semi-finals will feature eight competing entries each, from which four will be selected to advance to the final from each show.
Results during the semi-final and final shows will be determined by a jury panel and votes from the public.
Applications could be submitted to the broadcaster between 3 September 2018 to 21 October 2018. In total, 83 songs were submitted.
LTV shortlisted 33 entries to take place in the auditions, which were released publicly on 26 November 2018. They also opened an online vote, in order to help them select the entries that would advance to the shows, though it was non-binding. The competing artists and songs were announced on 5 December 2018.
20:05 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM OPATIJA 🇭🇷 THE 2019 DORA FINAL
CROATIA – Dora 2019 will be the twentieth edition of the Croatian national selection Dora, which will select Croatia’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The competition will consist of up to 16 entries competing in one final on 16 February 2019. Participating entries for the selection must be in either English, French, Italian, or Croatian.
Unlike in most other Dora editions the format of the competition includes one final night. 16 songs will compete in the final. The combination of points from a viewer vote and ten regional jury groups will determine the winner. According to the competition rules, in the event of a tie for the first place, the winner was the entrant ranked highest by the public televote.
Artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster between 20 November 2018 and 10 January 2019. 162 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period. An expert committee selected sixteen artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions.
The competing artists were announced on 17 January 2019. 4 Tenora withdrew on 29 January 2019, due to a previously scheduled concert. As a result of this, Kim Verson and her song “Nisam to što žele” will participate in the national selection instead. The running order was revealed on 4 February 2019.
20:00 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM LEKSAND 🇸🇪 THE THIRD MELODIFESTIVALEN 2019 SEMI FINAL
SWEDEN – Melodifestivalen 2019 will be the 59th edition of the Swedish music competition Melodifestivalen and will be held between 2 February 2019 and 9 March 2019. Presenters will be Sarah Dawn Finer, Kodjo Akolor, Marika Carlsson and Eric Saade. Edward af Sillén returned as a consultant and adviser, producing various interval acts for the hosts. The winner of the contest will represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Lovers of Valdaro, a duo consisting of Erik Gabriel Høiby and Adam Warhester, were announced as the first act of Melodifestivalen 2019 on 25 August 2018, after they had finished second in the 2018 edition of the Swedish talent show P4 Nästa. Although the duo didn’t win, a professional jury from the show had selected them to be pre-qualified for Melodifestivalen.
20:00 CET | WATCH LIVE FROM LJUBLJANA 🇸🇮 THE 2019 EMA FINAL
SLOVENIA – EMA 2019 will be the 23rd edition of the Slovenian national final format Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA). The competition will use by RTV Slovenija to select Slovenia’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.
Ten songs competed in a televised show where the winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, a jury panel selected two finalists out of the ten competing songs to proceed to a superfinal. Each member of the expert jury assigned a score of 1 (lowest score) to 5 (highest score) to each song with the top two being determined by the songs that receive the highest overall scores when the jury votes are combined.
Ties were broken by giving priority to the song(s) that achieved a higher number of top scores (5), which would be followed by each juror indicating their preferred song should a tie still have persisted. In the superfinal, public televoting exclusively determined the winner. In case of technical problems with the televote, the jury would have voted to determine the winner in a similar process as in the first round of the competition.
Artists and composers were able to submit their entries to the broadcaster between 9 November 2018 and 14 December 2018. 103 entries were received by the broadcaster during the submission period. An expert committee selected ten artists and songs for the competition from the received submissions. The competing artists were announced on 27 December 2018. Among the competing artists, Ula Ložar represented Slovenia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014.
19:30 CET | LIVE FROM BUDAPEST 🇭🇺 THE SECOND A DAL 2019 SEMI FINAL
HUNGARY – A Dal 2019 will be the eighth edition of the Hungarian national selection A Dal, which will select Hungary’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The competition will consist of 30 entries competing in three heats, two semi-finals, and a final. The hosts are Bogi Dallos and Freddie. At the first press conference on 3rd December, 2018, MTVA announced the hosts, the jury, the 30 competing songs, and introduced the new logo of the show. The former symbol was in use since the inauguration of the contest, and every year they added the current year in the logo. The new one looks like a play button, or a plectrum, written in the inside A DAL 2019.