Turkey: TRT will not participate in Eurovision 2017

by Sanjay (Sergio) Jiandani 8,736 views

TRT, the Turkish national broadcaster has confirmed to ESCToday that Turkey will not participate at the forthcoming 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv next May.

It will be the 5th consecutive year that Turkey will be absent from the competition, the country thus joins Slovakia, Monaco, Andorra, Luxembourg and Bosnia & Herzegovina all whom have confirmed their non participation at next year’s Eurovision edition. Thus we will not see the country return to the contest in Kyiv.

Turkey debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1975 and has won the event once in 2003 with Sertab Erener‘s Every that I can. The country successfully hosted the competition in Istanbul in 2004.

The last time Turkey competed at the Eurovision Song Contest was in 2012 in Baku when Can Bonomo represented the nation with Love me back placing 7th in the grand final.

Turkey withdrew from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013 and has been absent from the competition for 4 years having missed out competing in the contest in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

The period for countries to apply for participation at the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest concluded on 15 September. Hereafter applicant countries had a grace period until 10 October to decide if they were to stay or not in the competition without facing a financial penalty.

The final and confirmed list of the ESC 2017 participating countries is expected to be released by the EBU by the end of the year.

The 2017 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held at the IEC in Kyiv on 9, 11 and 13 May.