RTS, the Serbian national broadcaster, has revealed that it has received 75 songs for its selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2018.
All of the entries were submitted anonymously and could be written by Serbian or non-Serbian authors. The artist and songwriters will only be revealed after the pre-selection jury have made their decision. All songs must be no longer than three minutes and must be performed by a Serbian citizen aged 16 or over. The lyrics must also be in any of the official languages of Serbia (Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Croatian, Rusyn or Albanian). RTS also reserved the right to suggest to the authors of certain changes and additions to the composition and eventual change of the performer. The deadline for submitting songs was pushed back to November 10 from the originally announced October 20.
RTS also stated that the selection process will be revealed in due course. This contradicts earlier news that Beovizija would be used for the first time in nine years to select the Serbian entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest. Up to 10 songs would be selected to participate in the televised national final. The winner of the national final will be decided by a mix of a jury and audience vote.
Source: RTS
Serbia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Serbia have competed as an independent nation in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2007, and have seen great success in the competition. Their first entry in 2007, Marija Šerifović’S “Molitva”, won the contest in Helsinki with 268 points, making Serbia’s debut one of the most successful in Eurovision history. From then up to their year’s break in 2014, Serbia finished in the top 10 a further two times, including a 3rd place finish in 2012 with Željko Joksimović’s “Nije ljubav stvar”. They have only failed to qualify for the final on three occasions, the most recent being in 2017 when Tijana Bogićević’s entry “In Too Deep” finished in 11th place in it’s semi-final in Kyiv.
