Albania’s national final is over, there is not much left of 2019 and we’ll have a quite slow start of 2020, since most songs will first be selected in February(Yeah, I know, the Czechs will select in January, but they scrapped their national final, which is what most of us probably looked forward to watch). Anyhow, let’s take a fast look at Moldova.
National final or Internal selection?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, that Moldova is often one of the very late countries to announce… anything! Nearly every year, the confirm that they’ll participate at the end, every year they announce their plans very late and every year there is some changes happening.
Anyhow, yesterday TRM (Moldova’s national broadcaster) finally decided to accept submissions from interested artists that wish to take part in the “national selection” (Selectia Nationala in Romanian – This is what it is referred to in the Rules and Guidelines by TRM, more about that later), with the deadline set for January 17th, 17:00 local time.
After that, artists who have shown interest, will then have to perform in front of a live jury(the jury will consist of between 5 and 11 members), who then will judge the songs.
The Rules and Guidelines only mention these 2 stages of the selection so far, the first stage being the “Submission Period” and the second stage being the “Live Auditions“.
From here, it becomes very unclear what happens then. The live auditions stage will be broadcast live on Moldovan TV, but the date has still not been set. The thing is, this is what Moldova does every single year, but the missing part is that they don’t mention anything about a national final afterwards.
It was even rumored that Moldova would ditch their national final “O Melodie Pentru Europa“, and instead select internally, but the thing is, what they are doing is pretty much what they always do for their national final, but it could still just be a internal selection.
At section 4.3.7. of the Rules and Guidelines by TRM, it says that…
- “The winner of the respective stage will be designated as the representative of Moldova at the Eurovision 2020 competition.”
However, right after that at section 4.4., it says…
- “The local organizers, as a result of the consultations with the jury, can decide on the opportunity of conducting an additional stage, in this case a national final“.
Other than that, the remaining rules are pretty straight forward, standard Eurovision rules, only 6 performers on stage, no longer than 3 minutes, can’t be released before September 1st 2019. However, it will be allowed to have backing vocals on tape at the live auditions and citizens of Moldova can freely participate, but if you’re not a citizen of Moldova, then at least 50% or more on stage must be citizens of Moldova.
These would probably be the most interesting facts about the rules, the rest are minor details, but the question still remains about Moldova’s selection method.
Lately, more and more countries have slowly scrapped their national finals. For 2020, both Spain & United Kingdom decided to go internally, while the Czech Republic will return to a online selection and it is still unknown if France will continue with their national final.
Over the last decade, countries such as Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Ireland, Malta, North Macedonia, Poland, Russia, San Marino, Switzerland and The Netherlands have held national finals, but have lately decided internally, while a few other countries have thankfully also reverted to national finals.
Despite Moldova’s recent success in the 2017 & 2018 contest with back to back top 10 finishes, Moldova unfortunately failed to qualify to the final earlier this year in Tel-Aviv. Anna Odobescu could only score a combined total of 85 points in the second semi-final, being 9 points short from a spot in the final with her song “Stay”.
What do #YOU think about Moldova being unclear about their national final and do #YOU believe this could eventually cause some misunderstandings or trouble for the broadcaster? Join our forum right HERE or visit our social media sites and spread your voice.
Source(s): TRM.md (In Romanian)
