RTÉ HAS CONFIRMED that Ireland will be taking part in next year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
The national broadcaster announced that song submissions for next year’s competition, which will be held in Sweden, are officially open from today.
It said it is seeking entries from “contemporary artists and songwriters with the talent and ambition to compete and succeed in this highly competitive environment”.
Upon submission, the entries will be considered by a panel of music and entertainment industry professionals and Eurovision fans selected by RTÉ.
The announcement makes no mention of The Late Late Show, which usually hosts the domestic final that sees an act chosen to send to Europe.
Instead, it says a shortlist of songs and attached performers will be invited “to perform on television early in 2024 when a winner will be selected to represent Ireland in accordance with a selection process to be confirmed by RTÉ”.
The closing date for submissions is 6pm on 29 September.
The announcement puts an end to speculation that Ireland could stop taking part in Eurovision altogether following our recent bad run of form.
Wild Youth represented Ireland at this year’s contest in Liverpool with the song We Are One. But the band crashed out of the competition in the first semi-final.
With the exception of one year, Ireland has not qualified for the Eurovision final since 2013.
This year’s result prompted some people to suggest that Ireland should give up taking part.
However, others said a dramatic rethink in the format for selecting a song, as well as a bigger budget, is needed in order for Ireland to progress.
Speaking to The Journal after last month’s contest, Philly McMahon, a co-director with theatre production company THISISPOPBABY, said: “For me – in my vested interest as both a fan but also as somebody who puts on shows in Ireland – I think that RTÉ needs to recommit to the Eurovision and that often starts with budget, it starts with organisational buy-in.
“I think the Eurovision department has been starved of oxygen,” he said.
Recent poor results also do not mean that Ireland can’t win the contest again, according to former RTÉ boss and head of the European Broadcasting Union Noel Curran.
He told The Journal that he understood why countries who had been unsuccessful would lose heart.
“But again, the UK got zero points or very little points for so many years and then they came back … so things can turn around for everybody and there’s always that sense that things can turn around,” he said.
Curran also said that the competition was “open to change” and that other countries were seeking to join.
“We are open to change. Our problem is a successful one, which is that we have so many countries that want to take part. You know, we just have too many countries so we have to have some element of qualification.”
Sweden’s Loreen won Eurovision for the second time this year with the song Tattoo. The win also matched Ireland’s record of seven wins in the competition.
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