RTBF the French language broadcaster in Belgium, faces the possibility of a clash in the schedules between The Voice Belquie and the Eurovision Semi Finals. The issue surrounds around whether Belgium will end up being placed in the 1st Semi Final on Tuesday the 6th or in the 2nd Semi Final on Thursday the 8th.
If Belgium are drawn in the 1st semi final then the time of the show will clash with the final of The Voice Belguique, which would mean that RTBF have to show Eurovision live and the Voice delayed afterwards. If RTBF do not show Eurovision live they face a situation that Spain had in 2009. In which the broadcaster receives a fine for not showing it live, meaning that a public televote cannot take place.
RTBF have filled an application according to Tunder.be that Belgium be placed in the second semi final, however this has to be agreed to by the EBU as well as the Flemish broadcaster VRT who is in charge of Belgium’s Eurovision selection process for 2014.
Source: Tunder.be
Personally I think RTBF should be forced to postpone The Voice final to the following Tuesday or a different day in the week, I mean a Tuesday evening for something like the voice wouldnt happen over here, and the BBC would always change the schedule to accommodate Eurovision, therefore RTBF should be treated the same, I hope EBU go against letting Belgium participate in the Second semi final.
And theres two broadcasters for Belgium, yes one is for French viewers and one is for Flemish viewers, why can’t they resolve it by VRT just broadcasting the first semi final, if they ended up in that one, and include a French commentator on the same channel with a Dutch one.
Both have to broadcast the shows at the same time under the rules of taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest as an EBU member.
EBU made exceptions for the host broadcasters in 2013 and 2014 when allocating countries to one of the two semis (and even changed the date of the Eurovision final as to avoid a clash with a football game or something of equal inferior interest in Germany), so there is no reason why they shouldn’t make another exception for Belgium and secure them a fixed place in the second semifinal.
Any idea what time the EBU will release the official participant list tomorrow? and whether they will announce when they plan to allocate countries to semi finals? I thought it may have been on the same day as the participation list is released.
I’m not sure when we will get the official list out tomorrow, but I’d say sometime in the afternoon. It’s a matter of waiting to see what happens with Slovenia, as we already know that Greece have an extension until they sort out the whole issue of DT. The semi final draws I’d expect in March time after all of the submissions.
What happens with HRT and BNT?
Nothing back, we’ll have to see what happens tomorrow.
I would assume both BNT and HRT will stay out if nothing else has been said
Unless they just aren’t wanting to reveal anything if they were in the middle of discussions.
Anthony its a shame the Jon Ola Sand can’t put in the same effort to get countries to Copenhagen as Vlad did, he put out all the stops to get as much countries into Junior Eurovision 2013, if Vlad was able to bring Malta, Macedonia and nearly Cyprus at JESC and make it possible for San Marino to debut, I’m sure Sand can pull out the stops if he wanted to, to get the withdrawals to change their mind.
I’m actually changing my mind now about Vlad 🙂 he did a tremendous job with Junior Eurovision 2013, its a pity he didn’t take over sooner.