The upcoming season of Operación Triunfo will not be used to select the Spanish entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 2020.
Fernando López Puig, Director of Content for TVE, confirmed in an interview with Cadena Ser, Spain’s largest radio network, that Operación Triunfo will not select the Spanish entrant for Rotterdam. TVE is currently evaluating whether to have a public selection or an internal selection. The last Spanish adult Eurovision representative to be internally selected was Edurne in 2015. Melani García, this year’s Spanish Junior Eurovision entrant, was also internally selected.
Fernando López Puig explained:
“On the one hand, we [TVE] could choose the representative ourselves. We are asking Rosalía to go to Eurovision but at the moment, established artists don’t want to take that risk. On the other hand, we could have a public selection to pick our representative.”
The upcoming season of Operación Triunfo will begin airing on TVE next January. For the past two years, the Spanish representative has been selected through Operación Triunfo, which was previously used to select the Spanish representatives between 2002 and 2004.
Update – RTVE has confirmed that it will be internally selecting a “well-known” singer to represent Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest. The decision to return to an internal selection returns to the process used to determine the Spanish entry in 2012, 2013 and 2015.
Miki represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with the song “La venda”. The singer ended the night in 22nd place with a total of 60 points.
Source: Cadena Ser, RTVE
Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest
Spain debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 and has competed annually since. Spain has won the contest on two occasions the first being in 1968 and the second time in 1969. 1969 is the only year where more than one song has won the contest. The 1969 contest saw a four-way tie between Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Since 2000 Spain has only managed to finish in the top 10 on five occasions, the last time being in 2014 with Ruth Lorenzo. However, the country has finished 20th or below on ten occasions, the worst placement being 26th in 2017.
