Chances of seeing Bosnia and Herzegovina participants in Kyiv next year seem to be very small. That is the message coming from the broadcaster as they financial issues they struggled with just a few months ago haven’t settled yet.
The reason for this is that the national parliament still haven’t manage to find the solution for how to collect TV-taxes in the future. TV-taxes are currently the only source of funding for BHRT and for some time they have been collected through telecom operators in the country. There was made a proposal to collect taxes through electricity bill in July this year, but in the end of the day the parliament couldn’t agree on this. Furthermore the parliament failed to make an agreement on how to share television advertising revenues between three public broadcasters in Bosnia and Herzegovina: BHRT, RTVFBiH (Radio Television of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and RTRS (Radio Television of Republika Srpska).
According to Lejla Babović, who is the project coordinator regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest within the Bosnian and Herzegovinian National Public Broadcaster (BHRT), another issue that makes the country’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest problematic is how to find the sponsors, who are interested in supporting the project financially. She describes the contest as an expensive piece of toy just as every other music or sports competition. Babović also said that it’s impossible for Bosnia and Herzegovina to accomplish a significant result in the Eurovision Song Contest as long as the state and the sponsors don’t support the project.
Bosnia and Herzegovina returned to Eurovision this year after three years of absence from the contest. Dalal, Deen, Anja Rucner and Jala didn’t manage to qualify for the final as they finished 11th in the first semifinal. You can watch their performance of the song Ljubav je in the video below:
