Luxembourg – RTL has confirmed that it will not be participating in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014. After the government told the parliament that the country’s participation is up to RTL in 2012, the broadcaster confirmed its desire to not take part anymore in the contest. Luxembourg has not participated sine 1993 and RTL even retired from EBU for a while.
It’s a long dream from Eurovision fans to see Luxembourg returning. After it left the contest in 1993 just like Italy (which participated by mistake in 1997 when RAI forgot to cancel participation and therefore sent San Remo winners in hurry), Luxembourg’s return felt closer once Italy decided to fully return to the contest, with great commitment leading to three Top 10 places in a row. But Luxembourg’s RTL is on a whole different page.
Esctoday is spending the summer asking different broadcasters what they intend to do regarding the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Denmark in 2014. RTL responded that they will not be part of it and here is how Esctoday puts it: “Last September RTL had informed Esctoday.com that due to a low budget and lack of manpower RTL has not been competing in the Eurovision Song Contest since the mid 90′s , hence the broadcaster has no intention of participating at the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Denmark. The broacaster currently concentrates on news feautures rather than music and entertainment shows. A participation at the Eurovision Song Contest would be both a financial and organizational strain on the channel, taking into account its low financial budget” (link).
If RTL said that a return could be possible one day, they have now been saying that for too many years for fans to find hope in this. The country participated in the first contest, in 1956, and won it five times but has now missed the last 20 editions in a row.
So far, Malta, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Albania, Iceland, Ireland, San Marino, Georgia and Belgium have all confirmed their participation at the forthcoming contest next year.
The Eurovision Times 
RTL is hopeless when it comes to ESC. :(
So sad. How awesome would it be to see Luxembourg returning back! :(
By the way.. The Netherlands has also confirmed for participation in 2014, didn’t they?
really? have they? maybe we missed some news!
Germany has confirmed too. :)
ok! it’s hard to find news online (some sites also have France confirmed but i couldn’t find anywhere anything slightly official or citing sources to confirm)
for germany this is what i found: http://blog.prinz.de/grand-prix/interview-mit-thomas-schreiber-2014-deutscher-vorentscheid-eine-show/
That Prinz Blog interview with Thomas Schreiber sums it up nicely. Germany will participate in 2014, and we will have a national final without semis. I hope that the song quality will be as good as this year … but I also hope that the live performances will be stronger and that we will choose a better song.
Yeah, they already confirmed their participation even before esc 2013 was over.
Broadcast companies “Avro” and “TROS” are becoming one broadcast company named: “AvroTros”.
Luxembourg would probably suffer from the microstate curse if they returned, but it’s still sad to not have them here.
1956 (both songs), 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1973, 1977, 1979… There are many of their entries I really like. “Les amants de minuit”, “Ne crois pas” and “Nous les amoureux” are the 12/12 ones.
nothing past 61?
1. Les amants de minuit 12/12
2. Nous les amoureux 12/12
3. Ne crois pas 12/12
4. Tu te reconnaîtras 10/12
5. Petit bonhomme 10/12
6. L’amour est bleu 10/12
7. Poupée de cire, poupée de son 10/12
8. C’est peut-être pas l’Amérique 9/12
9. À force de prier 9/12
10. Croire 9/12
I guess this would be my Luxembourg top 10. “Si la vie est cadeau”, “Frère Jacques” and “J’ai déjà vu ça dans tes yeux” follows. You’re right that in my opinion, it seems as if Luxembourg got rid of all its powder in the beginning. ;)
Luxembourg then really lost it in the 70’s. 1971, 1974, 1976 and 1978 were probably the worst Lux entries ever. And 1980 too, of course. Very tacky and silly, but the lyrics are at least somewhat charming imo.
yeah, but then 71 horror is followed by two wins (even if I’m not a fan of 72 at all) and though we prefer 77 to 78, the juries had it the other way around, same in the 80s, when Luxembourg alternated the corny, the campy, the typical and all sort of results… i’m sure it would be a hell of a country, both from amazing to awful with unfair results nowadays! but still, Luxemoubrg gave us a few eternal classics!