The Head of Delegation for Switzerland has revealed on an Instagram story that the country “won’t send a male ballad” to Eurovision next year.
Yves Schifferle, who plays a direct role in selecting Switzerland’s artist for the contest, confirmed that the nation will move in a new direction with its next song.
In the past two years, Switzerland has been represented by Marius Bear (2022) and Remo Forrer (2023), with the songs “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Watergun” respectively. Both of the songs were ballads, with both reaching the Grand Final of their respective contests.
That recent track record has led some on social media to joke that Switzerland would send a similar song for 2024. Seemingly responding to this, Schifferle added a big “SURPRISE” to his instagram story.
Switzerland has not yet revealed the artist or song who will represent them at Eurovision 2024. It is believed that five artists remain in the running to win the Swiss broadcaster SRG SSR’s internal selection process.
Live auditions were held on December 5 at the SRF studios in Zurich, with the five artists performing ‘live’ for a jury.
More than 420 songs were submitted in to the Swiss selection, with the final five songs and artists now being chosen by the juries. The Swiss representative will be determined by three juries: the Swiss audience jury, international audience juries and a 25-member international expert jury. The jurors are past Eurovision jurors.
The Swiss representative for Eurovision 2024 will be determined by the end of this year, with the nation’s entry to be revealed in March 2024.
At the 2023 contest, Switzerland was represented on the Eurovision stage by Remo Forrer. His ballad “Watergun” qualified for the Grand Final, eventually finishing in 20th place after scoring 92 points overall.
Image Source: EBU / Corinne Cumming | Source: @ESCDiscord (X)
Switzerland hosted the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, a contest that they also won. Lys Assia won the first contest with the song “Refrain”. It wasn’t until 1988 that Switzerland would win the contest again. At the contest in Dublin, it was Celine Dion with “Ne partez pas sans moi” who beat the United Kingdom to victory by just 1 point. In 2021 Switzerland finished 3rd with “Tout l’univers” by Gjon’s Tears. This was Switzerland’s first top three result since 1993.
