ERT, the Greek national broadcaster has set the date for the 2018 Greek Eurovision national final, where 3 acts will battle for the golden ticket to Lisbon.

Greece will be holding its Eurovision 2018 national final on Friday 16 February at ERT’s Studios in Athens. The news broke on Greek new site newsit.gr earlier today.

According to reports, the show will be aired on ERT 1 and the Greek audience will determine the 2018 Greek Eurovision representative and entry.

The three competing acts will record videos of their respective entries, in order to present them to the viewers during the national final. These videos will be filmed prior to the show.

Hereafter, ESCToday contacted ERT national broadcaster in order to shed more light on the matter:

ERT the Greek national broadcaster has confirmed to ESCToday that the 2018 Greek Eurovision national final will take place on 16 February and that an official announcement regarding this will be made in due course. ERT will be disclosing more details and information about its Eurovision 2018 preparations in the coming days.

The 2018 Greek Eurovision project

Last year, ERT sent out an invite to national record companies in order to submit a proposal with potential candidates for the 2018 Greek Eurovision national final. The key requirement was that the song had to be entirely in Greek with Greek ethno-influence and sound.

The broadcaster received a total of 20 songs from 14 different local record companies for the national final.

Hereafter an artistic committee evaluated all submitted entries and whittled them down to a total of 5 songs. These songs were then handed over to a special working group committee at ERT in order to deliberate the next steps towards organizing a national final.

ERT’s special working group committee whittled down the songs from 5 to 3 as 2 of the entries did not fully comply with the 2018 Greek Eurovision national selection’s requirements and rules.

The candidates

• Areti Ketime – Don’t forget the Sun – (Spice Records)
  
• Chorostalites – Apo tin Thraki os tin Kriti – (Spider Records)
  
• Gianna Terzi – To oniro mou – (Panik Records)

Greece in Eurovision

Greece debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with Marinella and has won the event in 2005 with Helena Paparizou‘s My number one, thus bringing the contest for the very first time on Greek soil in 2006.

The country has been one of the most successful countries in the competition in recent years, having not missed a single Grand Final with the exception of 2016 when it didn’t qualify to the Grand Final in Stockholm.

In 2017, Demy was selected internally to represent Greece at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv. She made he nation proud with her entry This is love. Despite an extraordinary performance she placed 19th in the Grand Final.

The 2018 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 8, 10 and 12 May at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.