The European Broadcasting Union has tightened its rules around the eligibility of songs being released/available before September 1st to compete in Eurovision.
The Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne has revealed in an interview with KP that the European Broadcasting Union has changed its rules on the eligibility of songs that were published/released before September 1st to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest.
A spokesperson for Suspline explained in an interview with KP that:
There used to be a restriction specifically on commercial releases, but since 2022 this condition has also changed: the concept of a commercial release has been removed, so that the emphasis is no longer on the commercial component of the publication, but any release of a song before 09/01/2021 is prohibited. According to the rules of the international competition, the national selection is organized under the sole responsibility of the respective broadcaster-participant, which ensures the implementation of the rules of the competition.
The Ukrainian broadcaster’s comments on the rules come after LAUD was disqualified from Vidbir 2022. His song was found to have been released by its songwriter on YouTube in 2018, as a result, LAUD was removed from the selection. He was unable to change his song as he had only submitted one song into Vidbir.
Suspilne explained that at the time of the song’s selection for Vidbir they were not aware of its release prior to September 1st, 2021. They were made aware by fans of the competition who found the earlier song on YouTube.
A number of songs in selections and at the Eurovision Song Contest including “Reqiuem” (France 2017) and “1944” (Ukraine 2016) have been performed in concerts before the deadline for songs to be eligible. The EBU has ruled in those cases that no rule was broken and that songs were eligible to compete in the contest.
Image Source: NPO/NOS/AVROTROS Nathan Reinds | Source: KP