Israel: Preparations for Rising Star for Eurovision 2018 begin!

by Gil Laufer 1,745 views

Less than two months prior to the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 and some countries already look forward to next year’s edition. Following Norway’s announcement of MGP 2018, representatives of Teddy Productions in Israel have started looking for suitable candidates for Rising Star for Eurovision 2018.

With the planned broadcaster change in Israel in a month’s time, when IPBC should take over IBA, broadcast this year’s Eurovision and take care of the Israeli participation and mechanism in the future, it is yet unconfirmed whether the Rising Star mechanism will be used again next year. It doesn’t stop the production team from looking for suitable acts to represent Israel in 2018.

Back to 2017: IMRI’s I feel alive starts to show some national success: the song got in the prestigious playlist of Galgalatz, Israel’s leading radio station, which means the song will be played frequently during daytime (5:00-21:00). The song also stands among the 20 candidates to get into Galgalatz’s weekly chart, where the listeners vote online for their favourite Hebrew and International songs and the Top 10 of each category are played. Following Eurovision 2015, Golden boy has peaked at number 4 while the Swedish winner Heroes stood at the second place.

Voting for IMRI in this week’s chart is possible here (in Hebrew)

I feel alive will compete at the second half of the second semifinal, hoping to get Israel to the final for the third consecutive year.