Belarus: $8000 Buys 5th Place in Eurovision National Final

The true cost of participating in Belarus’ Eurovision selection has been revealed today, with the money spent by some acts being released.

Reports by KP.by state that Napoli alone spent around $8000 on participating in this years Belarusian selection, an investment that brought her a 5th place finish on Friday night. The $8000 which is just more than double the average income in the country, was spent on the songs authors, the outfit worn by the singer as well as on choreography and backing dancers. The producer of NAPOLI, Aleksandr Slutskiy denied that any of the $8000 was spent on SMS voting, stating that the second place in the televote was legitimate.

Another band to spend a significant amount of money on this years contest are Nuteki. The group reportedly spent $5000 on their preparations and stage show which featured a cell. While the winners NAVI spent $2000 to prepare their song, outfits and music video.

Since the final there have been questions raised as to the legitimacy of the number of votes received by PROvokatsiya during the final. The group topped the televote with a total of 9238 votes just under 2000 votes more than second place Napoli. The group however failed to score a single point from the juries. PROvokatsiya are a relatively unknown band having on made it through to the final of Belarus selection for the first time this year. According to KP the cost of the televotes received by the group would have cost around $2300. The band’s producer denies that any SMS votes were bought.

NAVI will represent Belarus at the 62nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Historyja majho žyccia”, it is the first time that a song in Belarusian has been selected to represent the country at the contest.

Source: KP.by

[tw-accordion class=””] [tw-accordion-section title=”Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest”] Belarus debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2004 and has made it to the final on four occasions. For the past two years Belarus has failed to make it through to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest, this year IVAN finished 12th in the second semi final, 21 points away from qualification. Belarus’ best result in the contest came in 2007 when Dmitry Koldun finished 6th in the final with a total of 145 points. In total Belarus has qualified for the Eurovision final on just four occasions.
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