Slovenia not likely participant?

With only one day left before the EBU’s deadline for broadcasters to announce their participation in the upcoming Contest, some countries seem less likely than others to participate. One of them is, sadly, Slovenia.

The Slovene-based (and also Slovene-speaking) website Eurovizija has been publishing rather bleak articles in the past week. One entitled “Black Clouds over Eurovision and the Entertainment Programme of RTV SLO” notes that Slovenia still does not have a director for their Entertainment and Cultural Programme of RTV SLO. As they had an tender open for the position – and failed to gain a new director – the overall Director of RTV SLO is currently filling this spot. This however, is rather bad news, since the director of the entire broadcaster cannot oversee the production of the Slovene national selection (EMA) nor Slovenia’s actual participation in Eurovision.

In another article, one of the Evrovizija writers notes how the Programme and Production Plan of RTV SLO notes that in case the broadcaster cannot find sufficient sponsorship, they will have to withdraw from Eurovision participation in 2014. Being that there is no overarching person organising EMA or Eurovision participation, it is highly unlikely that RTV SLO has contacted any potential sponsors, either.

With the economic crisis hitting Slovenia in the past year, as well as string of poor placements in the past few years (Slovenia qualified to the final only twice since the introduction of the semi-finals, including placing dead last in 2013 with Hannah’s “Straight into Love”), everything seems to be going against Slovenia’s participation in Copenhagen. Or, preferably, Slovenia will find a way to fund their programming and a new director enabling Slovenia’s unbroken record of participation since 2001?

What do you think? We’ve got our fingers crossed at ESC United that Slovenia will make it work!