Romania ROMANIA 2016 - Not taking part

[tuorem]

I was real far from imagining broadcasters could take part while not paying their fees How was that even possible for Romania in the first place?

Measures should have been taken by the EBU way before it reached this astronomical amount of money tbh, it is indeed TVR's fault but the EBU has been too indulgent towards them: if they already had trouble paying fees of past participations, how could they afford another year? Romania should have been kicked out after the contest in 2015, now is the most inappropriate moment of cancelling their participation. And of course, that is rude towards the artist and the team that worked until then for Stockholm.

I do worry for Romania, TVR's debt won't be cleared in the blink of an eye and the fact they lost their rights make me think it may last more than a little while. :? Unless another broadcaster wants to replace them, I'm pessimistic about Romania's possible return in a near future.

I didn't listen to "Moment Of Silence", but it's a great loss regardless of how much the entry is appreciated here.

I send all my support vibes to Romanians and fans of Ovidiu. That news is not cute at all.

 

[Sammy]

This affair raises for me other questions. Is Romania the only country who took part in the past without paying? Are we to expect more cases like this in the nearer future? Even in this year?

 

[Sammy]

Does anyone know, if this equals an exclusion of the Romanian broadcaster? I mean, they are not allowed to take part, they can't broadcast the contest, they loose other services....

 

[MyHeartIsYours]

Re: ROMANIA 2016 - Ovidiu Anton - Moment of Silence

How insensitive. No matter how you feel about the song, it's a great loss to lose a country so near to the contest, and how can you not feel sorry for Ovidiu. Dreams crushed less than 2 weeks before rehearsals. Poor guy.

I swear your mission in life is to twist everything I say What is "insensitive" about saying I'm sorry for the Romanian fans but this song not being in the contest is no loss?? :?

 

[Johnn]

The one time I feel like has put some effort in with a good song and good singer it manages to get disqualified. Stupid TVR for not paying your debts.

 

[nunaney]

I am so so upset. This was my 2nd favorite song and definitely one of the more interesting songs in semi 2 and I'm devastated that it's gone now.

Why couldn't they have kicked Romania out years ago? Why did EBU ever let them get away with having so much debt?

 

[QwaarJet]

Re: ROMANIA 2016 - Ovidiu Anton - Moment of Silence

I swear your mission in life is to twist everything I say What is "insensitive" about saying I'm sorry for the Romanian fans but this song not being in the contest is no loss?? :?

Because the perceived song quality has nothing to do with this. Romania have been thrown out and saying what you did is just twisting the knife for no reason other than to be cruel. I don't need to "twist" anything you say. The intention of the post was painfully obvious.

 

[Sammy]

Sergey Lazarev came up with the idea to let Ovidiu perform at least as a guest during the final. I think that the EBU could at least allow this to give the artist the opportunity to have some reward for all the work he has put into this so far!
And since there have already been changes made to the ESC that were inspired by Melodifestivalen, I think the EBU could also pull a "Anna Book" in this case.

 

[ESCada]

I am just thinking of all the years Romania took a spot from the 11th country in the Semi Final vote ........ And It pisses me off they had to wait soo long to make this decision.
That being said, I feel sorry for him as a performer and they should have banned them before the national selection even started !!!!

No pay no game, that's fair enough.

 

[Dante]

WTH did just happen, I just came home to find this. Kicking us out at this point is ment to force us to pay, because TVR will be obligated to pay the loss if it doesn't send Ovidiu, I'm pretty sure he signed something.

 

[popavapeur]

devil's advocate here : it's just obvious why they did that now, it's creating pressure because there's people involved. After the show it's the end, why would they pay ?
EBU just found the right moment to make that impact and TVR didn't pay (for whatever reasons) i'm almost 100% sure that they thought that TVR would have pay something just to stay for the ESC because it's too huge but.. no money I guess.

 

[revallsay]

Sergey Lazarev came up with the idea to let Ovidiu perform at least as a guest during the final. I think that the EBU could at least allow this to give the artist the opportunity to have some reward for all the work he has put into this so far!

That would be fair. I didn't like the song at the beginning, but I was totally sold by the emotions the songs brings, Ovi is such an amazing vocalist and I wish him very well.

 

[Matt]

Ugh, seeing the words "not taking part" right next to Romania is so depressing. People woke me up at five in the morning to give me the news and I couldn't go back to sleep. Now I'm cranky......it's Friday the 22nd, not 13th.

 

[Mii11]

Disgusting song contest run by Soviet-Nordic dictatorship. Romania is thrown out of the contest. Meanwhile 'European' country Australia is allowed in. I wonder why? Oh I forgot that EBU and Bjorkman are interested in $$$ rather than promoting European culture. They might as well get rid of this hypocritical slogan because they have just showed that in reality they don't want Europeans to 'Come together'.

 

[lowyby]

Disgusting song contest run by Soviet-Nordic dictatorship. Romania is thrown out of the contest. Meanwhile 'European' country Australia is allowed in. I wonder why? Oh I forgot that EBU and Bjorkman are interested in $$$ rather than promoting European culture. They might as well get rid of this hypocritical slogan because they have just showed that in reality they don't want Europeans to 'Come together'.

So they should probably also let Bulgaria, Bosnia, Ukraine, ... allowed when they withdrew of cash problems?
TVR promised something and didn't do what they promised so they're the ones to blame. The conspiracies are insane

 

[Franco]

Argh! I blame mostly the EBU for this. They handled the situation in the worst possible way. They should have either refused to accept the romanian entry submission at first stance, or waited after the final.
This way, instead, they have wronged the romanian broadcaster, which has wasted time and money in selecting and promoting their entry; they have wronged the hosting country broadcaster, which now has less than a month to adapt the schedule to one less entry; and they have wronged the fans, who were expecting 43 entries.

 

[Brandt]

Why couldn't they have kicked Romania out years ago? Why did EBU ever let them get away with having so much debt?

It would be harder decision for EBU to make when there were 37 participants. But this year, not that hard.

 

[eerik]

Come on, lets be reasonable and read the whole press release by EBU. This isn't an Eurovision Song Contest specific issue, it's about their whole EBU membership, which is a lot more than just ESC. TVR has been in-debt to EBU since January 2007 and been offered to restructure the debt since 2010. I agree that suspending TVR's membership just three weeks before the Contest is poor timing from EBU's part, but it should have happened already five years ago.

 

[nunaney]

They liked it and now it's gone 1

 

[Mii11]

So they should probably also let Bulgaria, Bosnia, Ukraine, ... allowed when they withdrew of cash problems?
TVR promised something and didn't do what they promised so they're the ones to blame. The conspiracies are insane

There are no conspiracies there. These are just pure facts. The fact that corrupt Azerbaijani broadcaster hasn't been punished for their revolting behaviour (and by accident every single year they happen to buy Swedish songs, thus boosting Swedish economy) as well as the fact that Georgia and Montenegro are still participating even though their jury voting was rigged in recent years shows that there are almost certainly some double standards.

They let Bulgaria, Ukraine and Bosna in because these countries are already members of the EBU. You probably have noticed that Bosnia attempted to participate in 2014 and 2015 but they had to withdraw due to shortage of money - EBU did nothing to help them. Australia is not a member of EBU so it would have no right to participate in Eurovision if EBU were really that keen to adhere to their own rules. Meanwhile Kazakhstan has been trying for a long time to join the contest but EBU did nothing to get them involved in one way or another.