The new Monegasque national broadcaster, TV Monaco, has become an active EBU member as of March and is thus eligible to compete at the Eurovision Song Contest.

TV Monaco was launched on 1 September 2023, the channel is now a full member of the EBU as of late March 2024.

Technically Monaco could have competed at Eurovision 2024 as it is under the umbrella of MMD (Monaco Media Diffusion). MMD is an active member of the EBU.

On September 15th 2023 MMD confirmed to ESCToday that MMD/TV Monaco would not compete at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo.

The last time Monaco competed at the Eurovision Song Contest was in 2006, back then the Monegasque national broadcaster TMC was responsible for the microstate’s participation at Eurovision. Recently TMC merged into French broadcaster TF 1 and is no more a member of the EBU.

Monaco withdrew from the competition in 2007 and its return to the competition in the near future seems more plausible as TV Monaco is now an active EBU member. Will we hear ‘Good evening Europe, this is Monte Carlo calling!’ next year at Eurovision? We will have to wait a tad longer to know…

With the return of Luxembourg to the contest after a 31 year hiatus we would love to see Monaco return to the competition.

Monaco in Eurovision

Monaco debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959 and has partaken in the contest 24 times. The tiny principality has won the competition once, namely in 1971 when Severine was crowned the winner in Dublin with her entry Un banc, un arbre, une rue.

The country competed in the contest religiously every year from 1959- 1979, then in 1980 it decided to withdraw from the competition and stayed out until 2004 when it decided to return when the semi-final was introduced.

Monaco competed at the 2004, 2005 and 2006 Eurovision editions and withdrew again in 2007 due to poor results and three consecutive non qualifications.

Source: EBU
Photo credit: TV Monaco