Can Romania do their best and go for their first victory in Tel Aviv? As the country of Eastern Europe will be celebrating its 20th Eurovision participation in 2019, the public broadcaster TVR is announcing the conduct of their annual selection format Selecţia Naţionala in the coming months. 

Together with the official announcements regarding their selection mechanism for 2019, TVR is also opening the submission window for the artists wishing to compete at the Romanian show and fight for their nation’s representation. Artists may apply for participation by 10 December, at 24:00 EET, on the broadcaster’s official website.

Selecţia Naţionala will be consisting of a series of semi-finals and its grand final, the winner of which will earn the right to defend the Romanian colours at the 64th Eurovision Song Contest. No more than 24 acts in total will be competing in the semi-finals.

When it comes to the progress’ flow, this year an appointed national jury is going to whittle down the semi-final entries and decide upon which ones will get the ticket to the grand final. This jury will be able to send up to 5 acts from each semi-final to the grand final, while the public will also have its say on one more act that will progress to the final stage.

However, this will not be the case in the grand final, as an international jury this time, along with the public will both have their say (probably equally) on the 20th Romanian Eurovision hopeful. The grand final will feature up to 12 acts competing.

TVR points out that it reserves the right to offer a wildcard to one of the participants in each semi-final, thus reducing by one the number of finalists decided by the jury or the public, as the case may be.

The semi-finals will be held between January and February, while the grand final will be staged in February. Further details regarding the exact dates of the event and the selected participants are expected in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, TVR has released all rules and regulations of the upcoming event. You may read the whole document here.

Romania at Eurovision

Romania saw their first Eurovision participation back in 1994, when Dan Bittman came 21st in Dublin with the song Dincolo de nori. Since then, the country has experienced mixed fortunes in the contest, with 6 Top 10 placings. Their best result to date is two 3rd places, achieved in 2005 and in 2010.

Until Lisbon’s Eurovision edition, Romania was one of the 4 countries to have never been eliminated in the semi-finals. However, this changed in May, as the winners of Selecţia Naţionala 2018, band The Humans with the song Goodbye, ended up 11th in the second semi-final, thus failing to qualify to the grand final of the competition.

Here’s their live performance on the stage of Altice Arena:

The 64th Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place on 14, 16 and 18 May at the Tel Aviv Exhibition Center in Tel Aviv, Israel. The event will be produced by the Israeli public broadcaster KAN and the EBU. A total of 42 countries are going to fight for the coveted Eurovision trophy.