Image credits: © Chloe Hashemi / EBU Romania hasn’t decided yet on its participation in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) 2024. With less than four months to go, the final decision is expected to be made during a meeting scheduled for January 25.
To participate, the Romanian broadcaster TVR will have to pay a fee of 180,000 euros… a payment that has not yet been made to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). After the controversy last year regarding Theodor Andrei’s participation, the country’s continuity has been in doubt.
TVR Director Dan Turturică told the FANATIK website that the participation matter in 2024 will be voted on during the January 25 meeting: “We will have a board meeting on January 25. We have time from the European Broadcasting Union to give a final answer by the end of this month. We will have the board meeting. There, we will vote. This is not a decision I make. It is a decision that has to be voted on because it involves high costs. […]. This is a decision that will be made by an open vote of all 13 members of the board. On January 25, we will vote, and then we will announce”.
The question for the board will surely be whether it is worth paying the 180,000 euros registration fee and other expenses to participate. In recent years, the results have been very modest despite the investment. In 2023, Romania failed to score any points in its semifinal, an unprecedented occurrence in Romanian history.
Adding to this are the controversies with Theodor Andrei and his accusations of the rejection of ideas and plans for performance, as well as a lack of funding in 2023. In 2022, there was the alleged nullification of jury votes due to irregular patterns in 2022. The identities of the six countries mentioned at the time by the EBU were not officially confirmed, but Romania was one of the six countries whose voting data was not disclosed, making it possible to establish a connection.
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