[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200"] Eurovision Song Contest 1980 Morocco : Samira Ben Said – Bitaqat hob (Photo credit: Eurovision.tv)[/caption]
SNRT, the Moroccan radio-television Company has informed EBU that it does not have any intention to return in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Last year it appearred that the only north-african country that ever competed in the cotnest could return in the competition, but rumourshad been proved wrong.
Morocco is the only African country that has competed in the contest . Morocco made its debut in 1980 with Samira Ben Said with the song Bitakat hub (Message of Love) achieving the 18th place. The country never returned in the Contest ever since. Samira Said Ben is now one from the bigger stars in North Africa and enjoys enormous success in Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Dubai, Tunisia and in the rest of the Arab world
From 2nd to 4th November, Barcelona will be hosting the annual meeting of INFE Network . INFE Spain has received the responsibility from INFE Network’s board.
INFE Network ‘s annual meeting agenda includes:
1. Approval of membership applications
2. Member cards
3. Eurovision 2013
4. Improvement of Regulations
5. Annual events of Network
6. Deontology Committee
7. Annual meeting host INFE for 2013
8. Other issues
Apart from the meeting, there will be plenty of time for sightseeing and entertainment in such a beautiful city as Barcelona. We are sure the INFE Spain will be a great host . See you soon in Barcelona.
The day where all Europeans sit in front of their TV sets has finally come.
It’s the Eurovision 2012 Grand Final will take place in a few hours and a new hosting country will be announced. 26 countries are competing this year for the trophy and they are all good. Azerbaijan has proved to Europe , that although way far away they can host such a huge event as the Music “Olympic Games of Europe”. After this we can also except a reentry of Baku City as a candidate city for the Olympic Games as they were not selected for the 2020 Olympic games.
What we will see tonight
26 countries are competing tonight and these are listed according to their appearance order :
1. United Kingdom – Engelbert Humperdinck – Love Will Set You Free
2. Hungary – Compact Disco – Sound of our Hearts
3. Albania – Rona Nishliu -Suus
4.Lithuania – Donny Montell – Love is Blind
5.Bosnia Herzegovina – Maya Sar – Korake ti znam
6.Russia – Buranovskiye Babushki – Party For Everybody
7. Iceland – Greta Salóme & Jónsi - Never Forget
8. Cyprus – Ivi Adamou – La La Love
9. France – Anggun – Echo (You and I)
10. Italy – Nina Zilli – L’Amore È Femmina (Out Of Love)
11.Estonia – Ott Lepland – Kuula
12.Norway – Tooji – Stay
13. Azerbaijan – Sabina Babayeva – When The Music Dies
14. Romania - Mandinga - Zaleilah
15. Denmark – Soluna Samay – Should’ve Known Better
1. Get your TV sets tuned in your national broadcaster frequency
2. Invite your friends and organise your personal Eurovision Party
3. Prepare or order your favourite meal ( Pizza, Popcorn,Bier and Gin& Tonic are the most common among Eurofans)
4. Grab a pen and a blank paper and vote for your favourites and last but not least
5. Enjoy your Eurovision Night
INFE Network will be there in the Arena and outside sending the warmest wishes for good luck to all the competing countries. An online review simultaneously to the Grand final will take place tonight through our website plus the full results of the Semifinals and the Winner´s Press Conference.
RTSH might not be broadcasting today’s semifinal after the tragic accident yesterday in Himara (136 km from Tirana), killing 12 and injuring at least 30 more. The bus was carrying 49 female students from Elbasan Universtiy, ried to stop the bus for some reason but failed. The vehicle left the road and fell 150 meters into ravine below, rescuers are still working to free students who might be still trapped in the bus.
Today has been declared moaning day in Albania, therefore RTSH will not broadcast the Semifinal 1 and a jury will decide the Albanian votes. Like happened with the Dutch entry in 2000, EBU will not apply any sanctions against Albanian Broadcaster.
Kosovo will not be joining EBU neither take part in the Eurovision Song Contest for now. Kosovo broadcasting station RTK requested to join EBU in order to be able to take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, since they find the competition “key to build up Kosovo international status”.
The rejection was justified since Kosovo does not belong to the International Telecommunication Union, the specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for information and communication technologies, which membership is required to be a member of the EBU.
Since Kosovo has been not recognized by the UN cannot be part of the ITU
Armenian Public Television (AMPTV) officially informed the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) of their withdrawal from the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest today.
‘We are truly disappointed by the broadcaster’s decision to withdraw from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest’, said the Contest Executive Supervisor Jon Ola Sand on behalf of the EBU. ‘Despite the efforts of the EBU and the Host Broadcaster to ensure a smooth participation for the Armenian delegation in this year’s Contest, circumstances beyond our control lead to this unfortunate decision’.
Only 42 countries will be represented at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, where 18 countries will participate in each semifinal. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom will automatically participate in the final as members of the big five, plus host country Azerbaijan.
TVR received a total of 109 songs for their national selection. 63 entries are lined up to represent Romania in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Other 46 were rejected as they did not comply with either EBU rules, or the rules of the national selection, or the submitted information TVR required is not full. However, the eliminated acts have been given more time to submit the missing materials, thus they have until tomorrow at 8:30 CET (9:30 local time) to do so. The jury will start assessing all the submissions from 9:00 CET (10:00 local time).
The jury at TVR will now choose a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 17 songs to proceed to the Romanian national final, scheduled to be held on March 10th.
The online procedure for accreditation for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 was opened for the media and fans today.
The accreditation process will take place online at eurovisionfamily.tv and will be open till Friday, 20th of April 23:59 CET. However, EBU recommends you to apply for accreditation as early as possible, so there is sufficient time to review the applications.
A link to the Accreditation System can be found here. On the same page, you can also find information about the visa procedure and conditions.
Today eurovision.tv announced that tickets for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan will go on sale on the 28th February 2012.
Schweizer Fernesehen, the local swiss national broadcaster and member of EBU, announced late at night the complete results of the country’s national final, which took place last night in Kreuzlingen Arena.Here are the full results of the 14 songs, that competed last night
1. Sinplus -Unbreakable(17.87%)
2.IVO – Peace & Freedom(16.02%)
3.Chiara Dubey – Anima nuova(13.82%)
4.I Quattro – Fragile(10.56%)
5.Katherine St-Laurent – Wrong to Let You Go(9.91%)
6.Patric Scott feat. Fabienne Louves – Real Love(9.81%)
7.Raphael Jeger – The Song In My Head(5.96%)
8.Lys Assia – C’était ma vie(5.46%)
9. Macy – Shining(3.49%)
10.Atomic-Angels – Black Symphony(2.36%)
11.Emel – She(1.3%)
12.Guillermo Sorya – Baby Baby Baby(1.19%)
13.Ze Flying Zezettes Orchestra – L’autre(1.17%)
14.Sosofluo – Quand je ferme les yeux(1.08%)
You can watch the complete show of last night’s Swiss National Final by clicking here.
Kosovo is one of the few European countries that have never participated in the Eurovision Song Contest. The Kosovar national broadcaster applied for membership to the EBU but has not been accepted as a full member.
History and interest
After Kosovo’s independence in 2008, its broadcaster Radio Televizioni i Kosovës (RTK) was applying for EBU membership, and wished to enter Kosovo into Eurovision Song Contest 2009.Kosovo would have made their Eurovision Song Contest debut in 2009 if it could have joined the EBU. Kosovo is not yet recognized by all countries and not a member of the United Nations; UN membership is required to obtain full EBU membership. There is already a cooperation agreement signed between the EBU and RTK and the EBU supports the membership of RTK. As of 2011, RTK has observer status within the EBU and did participate in the Eurovision Young Dancers.
According to the Kosovan newspaper Koha Ditore, a possible entry would be selected via a national final called Akordet e Kosovës, a former pop show that had been taken off the air some years ago. Antonio Gashi and Valton Beqiriworking for Akordet e Kosoves hope that RTK could soon join the EBU, they are itching to see Kosovo in the Eurovision Song Contest. In contrast with Luxembourg that doesn’t want to participate, the desire for Kosovo to participate in the content is very large. For example on YouTube, Kosovars spread songs that are showing “Eurovision Kosovo” in the title.
Eurovision Song Contest 1980 Morocco : Samira Ben Said – Bitaqat hob (Photo credit: Eurovision.tv)[/caption]
