Only three days have passed since the Grand Final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, but several countries seem to have already set their eyes on next year’s edition in Israel, with one of them being Iceland.

The programme director of the national broadcaster RÚV, Skarphéðinn Guðmundsson has stated that they “expect to take part next year, just like every year”.

Despite a recent series of poor results for them, the contest remains one of the most popular TV programmes in the country and that makes next year’s Icelandic participation rather positive. However, this is not an official confirmation. RÚV is expected to announce its intentions for Eurovision 2019 in the months to come, as the programme director stated:

Iceland will be announcing in autumn its decision to take part. Unless something changes we are looking to taking part in next year’s contest.

Iceland in Eurovision

The island of Vikings made its Eurovision debut in 1986, when RÚV connected its satellites with the rest of Europe and has only missed two contests since, namely in 1998 and 2002. Although the country is yet to win the event, it has reached in 2nd place twice; with Selma’s All out of luck in 1999 and Yohanna’s Is it true? in 2009. Could 2019 be the same or more successful?

Iceland was among the 43 participating nations in Lisbon’s Eurovision edition, with the winner of their national selection Söngvakeppnin 2018, Ari Olafsson and the song Our choice. Unfortunately, the country failed to qualify for the Grand Final for the 4th time in a row, coming only last (19th) in the first semi-final with 15 points.