Bulgaria to skip 2019 Eurovision as state broadcaster cuts costs

Bulgaria to skip 2019 Eurovision as state broadcaster cuts costs
Kristian Kostov representing Bulgaria with the song "Beautiful Mess" during a rehearsal before the second semi final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 in Kyiv. / Roger Dewayne Barkley, EuroVisionary
By bne IntelliNews October 15, 2018

Bulgaria’s public broadcaster BNT said on October 15 that it will skip next year’s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in mid-May in Tel Aviv.

The decision is part of BNT’s measures aiming at saving costs.

In the past two years, BNT was in charge of organising the Bulgarian participation in the contest with the support of its partners, production companies or professional teams who also shared the financing.

Despite that, the cost of preparing the Bulgarian contestant, creating and producing a song, a stage performance, producing a video and inclusion in the programme of the contest significantly outweighed the reasonable expenditure that a public broadcaster could afford, BNT said in the statement.

In addition, the participating states are also sharing part of the overall cost of the Eurovision song contest, which this year amounts to €5.3mn, BNT added.

73 companies from 56 countries in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East are members of the European Broadcasting Union. Each of the public broadcasters decides independently whether to participate in each contest.

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