TRT, the Turkish national broadcaster has confirmed to ESCToday.com that it has no plans to participate at the forthcoming 2015 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna next year. An official annoucement confirming Turkey’s plans regarding the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest is expected in due course.
It is highly unlikely that we will see Turkey returning to the contest next year. Turkey might be absent from the contest for a 3rd year in a row, having missed out in 2013 and 2014. It seems very likely that Turkey will join Slovakia, Monaco, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Andorra, all of whom have confirmed their absence at the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna Austria next year.
Turkey decided to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. TRT, the national Turkish broadcaster, announced in a communique on their official website on the 14th of December 2012 that Turkey would not compete at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden . The broadcaster’s reasons for withdrawing from the event in 2013 event were that the changes in the voting system of the contest: introduction of 50/50 jury and televoting deliberation, and the Big 5 rule, enabling Spain, Italy, UK, France and Germany to automatically qualify every year for the final. The broadcaster expressed its discontent regarding these rules and felt they were not fair.
So far a total of 18 countries have confirmed their intention to join the Eurovision bandwagon next year in Vienna: Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, , Finland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Cyprus, Malta, Belgium, The Netherlands, Greece, Lithuania, FYR Macedonia, Estonia and Ireland. Whilst Belarus, Montenegro and Latvia have stated that they are most likely to enter the competition next year. The deadline for countries to submit their applications to participate at the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest has been set to 15 September.
The official list of the 2015 Eurovision participating countries is expected to be released by the EBU by early January. The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest is scheduled to be held on 19, 21, 23 May at the Wiener Stadhalle in Vienna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJt-Rw2Urg
Turkey debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1975 with Semiha Yanki’s Seninle bir dakika.Turkey won the contest in 2003 with Sertab Erener’s Every way that I can and successfully hosted the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest on home soil in Istanbul.
