Spain – The national broadcaster TVE, will host the first semi-final of Benidorm Fest 2023 tonight! Nine songs competed for four places in the final!
With last year’s success – three songs challenged for the victory, one won televote, one was #1 in charts and the second one in the Eurovision podium! – it was never in doubt that the new national final Benidorm Fest would be given a second shot. Moreover, the usual controversies around the Spanish NF results (where juries tend to overthrow televote winners) were met with a reshuffle in the voting process (an international jury will be introduced in the final for instance).
The show will be held in Benidorm and will be hosted by Monica Naranjo, Ines Hernand and Rodrigo Vazquez. This is tonight’s line-up:
- Sharonne – “Aire”
- Aritz – “Flamenco”
- Sofía Martín – “Tuki”
- Agoney – “Quiero arder”
- Megara – “Arcadia”
- Alice Wonder – “Yo quisiera”
- Meler – “No nos moverán”
- Fusa Nocta – “Mi familia”
- Twin Melody – “Sayonara”
For tonight’s show, Edurne (Spain 2015), Monica Naranjo and Leo Rizzi and will do the interval shows!
Tonight, the four acts with the highest results will qualify to the Grand Final after a mixed jury (50%), televoting (25%), demoscopic audience voting (25%) deliberation. Here are the juries:
- Christer Bjorkman (Sweden 1992, Show Producer Eurovision 2013, 2016-2017, 2019, MF Producer 2002-2021)
- Katrina Leskanich (Eurovision 1997 winner)
- Tali Eshkoli (Head of Event at the Eurovision 2019 and member of the Israeli delegation)
- William Lee Adams (Eurovision fan)
- Nicola Cagliore (Former Head of the Italian delegation and former Reference Group Member at ESC andat the EBU TV Committee)
- Jose Juan Santana (OGAE Spain President and composer of Montenegro 2009 and San Marino 2012)
- Nina (Spain 1988)
- Irene Valiente (Radio 3)
The show starts at 22:50 CET and can be watched here.
The Eurovision Times 
The stage!
Aah, the rotating sun is in the ceiling above the stage this time!
It looks nice but then again they all look nice in the graphics.
There are experienced pros who’ve done work for big shows before this time unlike in Turin (and thx God not that Austrian guy again). I like the blue – they also had a lot in the logo, which makes sense because LIverpool is a sea city and there’s blue in both Ukraine’s and the UK’s flags (contributed by Scotland, I might add).
Serbian songs have been released:
official releases are SO last season. We wanted leaks :P
😪
Have you seen the latest episode if this badly written soap opera?
Melissa Mantzoukis threatens to take legal action against ERT.
A gift that keeps giving! You just have to love it.
Konto will not let go of this. EuroFun is allowing a torrent of comments against ERT calling the whole procedure fraudulent. I always said that if ERT ever dumped Konto’s Team, that site will be the first to unleash the online mob they have created against the broadcaster.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not defend ERT. Internally selecting an unknown 16-year-old without any experience but with important family connections is totally indefensible. Especially since they will try to deflect criticism by hiding behind the fact that he is legally a minor.
I don’t agree with the selection method for years now. Selecting someone no one knows. But they used the same method for 4 years now. They didn’t invent it in order to serve the Vernicos family. And the boy has talent. Wouldn’t it also be an injustice to not pick him because he comes from a rich family ? Of course you’ll argue that they could just involve the people but the selection method was decided months ago and they were not going to change it now. I believe they will do it next year.
Actually they changed the method at the last moment and brought in a focus group of 70 random people. That’s a certain sign of infighting and backstage interventions. Now one side is trying to use the results of the focus group in order to bolster their case.
I have watched ERT president talking about it a while back and he seemed very content about this peoples jury. He actually thought it was a good idea.
Considering she’s from Bavaria, I’m not surprised. #DreamTeam4eva
She has bad advisors if she decides to go down that road. She knew exactly what the procedure was. If she had issues with it she should have withdrawn.
Probably an entourage telling her how brilliant she is and egged on by DreamTeam.
She is not sueing anyone. It’s just a little publicity stunt to milk it for couple headlines.
Yes, I suppose you’re right.
People who took recently part in Belarussian National Finals, also knew there would be jury involved … Should they have also withdrawn or raise their voice if they encountered fishy methods?
The voting procedure ERT opted this time was totally not transparent with vague rules and manipulation. It was definitely NOT 50% of people voting that’s a LIE! Especially since the winner did not come after the combined ERT + demoscopic initial vote but ONLY after ERT evaluated the final top 3 and voted again (but with the knowledge of how demoscopic group voted this time). I doubt the rules were those from the beginning…
haha, lovely ! where did you read it? I don’t read eurovisionfun any more, so I guess there?
Her lawyer talked to media.
I’m catching up. ERT couldn’t have handled things worse. And the truth is that since the procedure was not transparent from the beginning (f.e why should ERT vote again and pick the winner out of the 3 and AFTER knowing the way public voted) Melissa has every right and room to take legal actions.
Lol. It’s ludicrous to suggest she has any valid legal claim on this. In fact it was all clear from.day 1 despite the sloppy handling. They all KNEW that before the jury announce their final decision they will meet with the chosen artists and their teams and discuss their plans from now till May. So they reached the top-3 of the combined vote which Victor actually topped and then met with the 3 teams and finally announced the selected artist.
Eurovision Fun claimed that last year what tipped the choice in favor of Amanda was her actual meeting with ERT. They were impressed by her personality and thought she would be a great ambassador for ERT.
This year they tried to make it even more open to the fans but handled it in a sloppy way.That’s my main criticism and I hope they will change it for next year.
No, Dimitris, it was not clear since day 1 that ERT would revote after the voting of public (nor it is fair, meeting of 7 artists should have been done before demoscopic vote)
The results should have been made public immediately (and not after a lawyer’s request) same as the demoscopic draw procedure. Also claiming it’s 50-50% when ERT revotes on 3 is unethical and manipulative. That’s what Belarus and Romania do in their NFs…
Sorry but you are wrong. It was crystal clear from day 1 that the jury will meet with contestants and their teams and take other factors into consideration. The same thing happened last year . Maybe you missed that part. May I also remind you that we didn’t have any announcement regarding results last year either other than the name of the chosen artist? I didn’t see anyone complaining about that even though we lost the chance to have a music gem representing us in Turin.
Last but not least,where’s the announcement that ERT jury voted twice? All I read is speculation. Victor won the combined vote of the jury plus audience. Melissa was 2nd in the combined vote. She never won it so,maybe you should reconsider.
But last year they meet with all 5 not with 3. It’s
So what? That’s the scandal? They shortlisted the top-3 of the combined vote and met with them. Victor was 1st, Melissa 2nd and the duo 3rd. After the meetings took place the duo withdrew and they sticked to their favorite artist which is no surprise considering how mature he is for a 16 year old and how well he interacts with media.
I fail to see what you don’t get. It’s crystal clear for me that things were not objective this time (nor that it can ever be with ERT, as shown through years)
Not to mention a national broadcaster jury of professionals having Shout out just 20p behind Victor and 2nd overall…
I fail to see what’s crystal clear to you. I only see a sloppy and unncessarily complex procedure.That’s my critisism against ERT. What’s different this time is that for some reason,Mantzoukis was the overwhelming favorite of popular fan sites that tried to brainwash others she’s the best thing that happened to Greece after Helena Paparizou.
One last time:What you refer to as “revolting” is the face-to-face meetings with the top-3 which was a well known fact from day 1. There’s no need for conspiracy theories here.
That’s unfair of you to say, as you know my opinion on notorious Greek esc sites. However, saying they have been brainwashing the demoscopic jury to vote in favor of Melissa that’s far fetched
So it was only sloppy? Not fishy? Shout out was 2nd for God’s sake ! Come on!!!
ERT voted 2 times according to esc sites. There was NEVER offial anouncement on the procedure, it was all cloudy from the beginning. And things they promised they didn’t even deliver (like LIVE transparent demoscopic draw)
Last year there was no reason of public results as there was no voting of public and they just evaluated songs and artists internally.
Do you question the result of the peoples jury? Do you have any evidence they tampered with the result? I repeat. I never saw any ERT announcement that the jury will vote again. The only thing that was clear from the beginning was that the final choice will take into consideration the face-to- face meetings with the artists and their teams.
I don’t question anything BUT ERT and the procedure
And of course I question the taste of the comittee
And if ERT jury didn’t vote twice how do you explain the 1900 ERT points VS the 1543 demoscopic points?
That’s the vote in the field of the 7 contestants. We don’t know the number of votes the remaining artists received.
So Shout Out deserved almost double the jury points than Melissa, ok…
#I_love_Belarus
Neither of them deserved much. But I didn’t see you revolting last year when Die Together was chosen instead of Heaven Is Sin. I have already said numerous times i don’t like this selection method of half jury half peoples committee. And I’d like to listen to all 7 songs and maybe some more in order to form an opinion and criticize ERT for the right reasons.
#I_don’t_like-conspiracy_theories
PS:Comparing Greece with the awful dictatorship that is Belarus is at least unfortunate and I’ll leave it to that.
I don’t compare Greece just ERT and our media :P
That’s also completely wrong and indefensible. Sorry
Supporting our media and ERT’s procedure this year is indefensible, I am sorry and let’s just leave it here cause we will never agree
And I repeat : Last year was ONLY an internal selection. ERT had set that clear from the beginning. This time it is a parody of disguising ERT’s choice as a 50% public vote with manipulation and President’s darlings. And yes that deserves #belarus as a hashtag imo
President’s darlings? Lol.Please. Another unfounded accusation. The 50,6% of the peoples jury resulted in Mantzoukis reaching 2nd place because the jury clearly didn’t like it much. Unless,you’re saying she should have been chosen because she was the first choice of those 70 people. And let’s not forget Victor was the runner up of the fans vote.
No , I just say the obvious. It was not a matter of taste. Feel free to consider it unfounded accusation. Weird as you also said it was fishy that Shout Out was that high with jury’s ERT the other day.
You don’t know if Victor was the demoscopic runner up. Pls decide if you want to reproduce what greek esc sites write or not.
SF1
Luke’s song is interesting. I remember I didn’t like his ETSC song but this one is nice. I also singled out Empathy Soul Project though isn’t exactly what I fully support and I am curious to see Savo live :p
I’ve only checked some random photos of a few male contestants some time ago and I’m curious to see if they deliver song-wise too.
I bet these are the ones you remember :p
Savo:
Boris:
Ok, this was a really tough task:
I tried to come up with a top 20 (or so), with my most favourite songs from NFs that didn’t make it to the eurovision stage.
2011 (when I first started following NFs) onwards (in random order):
Simone Cristicchi – “Abbi cura di me”
Karetus and Romeu Bairos – “Saudade”
Blasted Mechanism – “Rebellion”
Surma – “Pugna”
JP Simões – “Alvoroço”
Igit – “Lisboa Jerusalem”
Erika Vikman – “Cicciolina”
Moi – “Bensin”
Linnea Dale – “High Hopes”
Ben Ivory – “The Righteous Ones”
Blitzkids mvt. – “Heart on the Line”
Madara – “Esamiba”
Ralfs Eilands and Valters Pūce – “Revelation”
Tsesho – “Hate”
Serhiy Babkin – “Kriz tvoyi ochi”
Plus a few ones from Slovenia, Hungary, Iceland and especially Estonia (Mimicry and Tellford Rabbit in particular) which unfortunately I cannot remember their titles :)
Tenfold Rabbit won BoNF 2012 with “Oblivion” ;) and Ben Ivory won 2013! “Revelation” 3rd in 2014
<3 <3 <3
Yeap, Oblivion was the one I couldn't recall the title!
So, three in common in our "all time" faves :)
Blitzkids was a huge missed opportunity. Our professional jury headed by Mary Roos had them first.
Cascada was like the worst of a strong NF
The shouty beerhall thing was the worst IMO.