Tinet Rubira, the music director of Gestmusic, the company that is producing Operación Triunfo, has confirmed all five songs in the Spanish national final will be sung entirely in Spanish.
Rubira confirmed details about the Spanish national final while responding to questions on Twitter. He stated that songs have already been sent to TVE. Songs in Spanish will be prioritised because according to Rubira: “Any good song sung in English by someone who has not mastered the language is not a good song any more. We will look for a good song and for the best candidate.”
The selection will take place before the final of Operación Triunfo and will feature the top five finalists. The candidates will be paired with songs that best fit their characteristics and will have one week to prepare their performances. Public voting alone will decide who will represent Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon. The date of the selection has yet to be decided on.
Operación Triunfo was previously used to select the Spanish representative for Eurovision from 2002 to 2004. This proved to be successful, as all three selected artists, Rosa, Beth and Ramón, finished in the top 10 in their respective years. Rosa’s performance at the 2002 contest was watched by 13 million people in Spain, a rating of 80%, which was the most watched moment in history on Spanish television at the time. Soraya Arnelas, the runner-up of the fifth edition of the show, also represented Spain in 2009 with “La noche es para mí”.
The show returned to Spanish screens in October, six years after the last edition was aired and thirteen years since it was last aired on TVE. It has proven very popular with audiences, attracting over 2 million spectators on average per gala. The final of the show will take place on January 29 2018.
Source: Bluper
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 nine occasions, the worst placement being 26th in 2017.
