The Times of Malta revealed last week the cost of participating to the Eurovision Song Contest for Malta.

According to Public Broadcasting Services (PBS) CEO Anton Attard, the Maltese selection and show for the Eurovision Song Contest costs about €200K, the cost of participating to the semi-final in Malmö  approximately €100K.

Money spent in taking part in the contest has been criticised in the press lately in particular by the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Malta, Dr John Betts who compared the budget of research of the University of €600K to the cost of the Maltese participation to the ESC.

However, Anton Attard confirmed that the budget spent on the ESC is nowhere near that amount and above all, that it costs no money to the PBS or taxpayers since everything is refunded through advertising, sponsorships and tickets.

We do not come close to spending €600.000 , but if Dr (John) Betts would like to copy our methodology to raise money for research, he’s more than welcome, Mr Attard quipped to the newspaper.

This year, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Portugal and Poland stayed out of the contest for financial issues and Greece and Cyprus saw their participation almost scrapped as well for the same reasons. The Lithuanian National Television organised a concert on 10 February to raise extra funds to help Andrius Pojavis, the Lithuanian representative.

Malta will be represented by Gianluca Bezzina who won the national selection last week and is to perform in the second semi-final on 16 May 2013 in Malmö.