The national broadcaster of FYR Macedonia has announced the names of the 2018 Macedonian Eurovision hopefuls. Eye Cue will defend the Macedonian colours at the forthcoming 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Lost and found.

Following Croatia, the next Balkan country to announce its Eurovision hopefuls is FYR Macedonia. MRT, the Macedonian national broadcaster opened the submission window for composers to send in their songs in order to represent FYR Macedonia at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.

Hereafter a special committee evaluated all songs and selected Bojan Travjovki‘s Lost and found. The song has been arranged and produced by Darko Dimitrov. MRT has selected Eye Cue to represent the nation at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest.

Eye Cue was founded in 2008 and consists of Marija Ivanovska and Bojan Trajkovski and have gained much name, success and recognition on home soil.  The band has great experience and is amongst the most sought after music bands today in FYR Macedonia having performed at numerous events and festivals.

About the selection processs

The special committee consisted of:

• Meri Popova – Coordinator of the Eurovision 2018 project and editor of the Cultural Art Program of MTV1
  
• Karolina Petkovska – editor of the Editorial Board for Contact Entertaining Emissions in MTV1
  
• Aleksandra Jovanovska – editor and host of the music show in MTV1
  
• Avni Qaili – editor of the Cultural Art Program of MTV2
  
• Branka Kostic Markovic – music journalist and critic,
  
• Andrijana Jovanovska – music reporter in Reporter MK
  
• Marko Mark – music journalist in Channel 77 and TV host Telma
  
• Antonio Dimitrievski –editor-in-chief of “True MK” and producer of the musical event Macedonian Radio Festival

In the preparation process of the selection, MRT  invited ten other professionals who are involved both in the Macedonian and world music scene, but for personal and subjective reasons they were not part of the selection committee.

MRT received 382 entries for its Eurovision 2018 selection. The special comittee shorTlisted the entries to 12 after 3 rounds of thorough evaluation.

The committee ranked each of the 12 finalist songs via the Eurovision voting system. After all the votes were cast, Lost and found received the hightest amount of votes and therefore was selected to represent FYR Macedonia in Eurovision 2018.

After  repeated interrogation, the committee concluded that the selected Eurovision entry would be best performed by the group Eye Cue. Marija Ivanovska is the leading vocalist of the group.

The Commission is unanimous in the view that: the selected composition has a contemporary sound, impressive refrain and text, excellent and original vocal abilities of the performer, which certainly offers the opportunity for a quality Eurovision package and a worthy presentation of MRT and FYR Macedonia at this prestigious musical event organized by EBU.

FYR Macedonia in Eurovision

FYR Macedonia debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1998 and is yet to win the competition. The country attempted to enter the competition in 1996 with Kaliopi but didn’t qualify from the pre-audio selection round.

The Balkan nation has never made it to the Top 10 of the scoreboard. Elena Risteka retains FYR Macedonia’s best result, namely at 12th placing which she achieved at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens.

In 2017, FYR Macedonia went internal in order to select its Eurovision act and entry for Kyiv and selected Jana Burčeska to defend the country in the contest with her dance beat Dance alone.

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