Earlier today, the Cypriot Broadcasting Corporation, CyBC, announced the country’s return to Eurovision and disclosed details about a three-phase national selection. It appears that, after a year’s absence from the contest, Cyprus’ comeback entry for 2015 will be decided through an ambitious selection format!
All three phases of the as yet unnamed national selection will be televised by CyBC. The first phase will consist of one-minute audition-type song presentations to a professional jury of between three and seven members.
The songs that will make it to the next, second phase will compete in live semi-final heats. The winner of each semi-final will be decided jointly by professional jury vote and televoting (each with a 50% score contribution) and go straight to the final. The runner-up song from each semi-final will have to go through a ‘Second Chance’ heat.
The national final shortlist will be made up of the winners of the semi-finals and the Second Chance heat. This ultimate phase will consist of two parts, again with a 50-50 professional jury/televoting contribution: the two highest ranking songs from the first part will go head to head in the second part for the chance to win the Cypriot selection and represent the country in the 60th Eurovision Song Contest in May next year.
The deadline for submitting entries for the Cypriot selection is Friday 5th September 2014. All candidates should be sixteen or over by 12th May 2015, i.e. the date of the 1st semi-final of next year’s Eurovision. The performer (not specified whether this applies to the main performer or all performers on stage) and at least one creator from each entry have to be Cypriot citizens or of Cypriot descent. The CyBC announcement stipulates that, for individuals to qualify as having ‘Cypriot descent’, at least one parent or grand-parent has to have been a Cypriot citizen. More details can be found at the CyBC official website or by direct enquiry at [email protected].
Cyprus last participated in Eurovision in 2013 with Despina Olympiou but failed to qualify for the grand final. In the following video, you can see Despina performing her entry An Me Thimasai (If You Remember Me) during one of the dress rehearsals for that year’s first semi-final.
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