Romania: Eurovision 2022 Participation Costs Revealed by TVR

WRS performing at the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin

TVR, the Romanian public broadcaster and EBU member station, has revealed that they spent 320,000 Euro (1.57 million lei) on the country’s participation in the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Turin. Mainnews.ro reports the cost breakdown down as:

• ~150,000 Euro (782,000 Lei) participation fee paid to the EBU, which secures the county’s slot in the contest as well as paying for rights to broadcast the live events.
• ~77,800 Euro (380,000 Lei) in costs related to organizing and broadcasting the country’s national selection, Selecția Națională.
• ~83,500 Euro (408,000 Lei) for “ancillary matters” such as travel, accommodations, and staging for WRS and other costs.

They are the third country to reveal their Eurovision 2022 expenditures and of the three spent the least on the contest overall. The Irish Mirror earlier this month revealed that Ireland’s RTE spent upwards of 350,000 euros on Brooke’s participation, while Spain’s broadcaster RTVE spent just shy of 680,000 euro on Chanel’s 3rd place performance.

Romania, represented by artist WRS with the song “Llámame”, finished in 18th in the Eurovision Grand Final, receiving 10 points from the televote in Moldova and Spain. This was Romania’s first time qualifying in the Eurovision Grand Final since the 2017 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine.

This result rounds out several years of challenges between TVR and the EBU. TVR is reportedly up to date on all outstanding debts to the EBU after risking losing their EBU membership in 2016, however the 2022 Eurovision Contest brought a new wave of scandal for the broadcaster when the EBU replaced their jury votes after voting irregularities were found in 6 juries. After several weeks of public statements threatening to withdraw from the EBU including a public vote, TVR dropped all objections towards the EBU.

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