Israel have wasted no time in beginning their preparations for Eurovision 2019. Last month national broadcaster KAN, in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced that Tel Aviv would be the host city and that the final would take place on 18 May. They also revealed the slogan for 2019 as: ‘Dare to Dream’. Now it has been confirmed that a total of 42 countries will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.
Despite recent speculation, Kazakhstan (who will debut at Junior Eurovision later this month), Liechtenstein and Kosovo are not set to make their Eurovision debut in 2019. Instead the field of contenders for Eurovision next year is set to be the exact same as 2018 with one exception. Bulgaria announced recently that they would be unable to compete in the upcoming Contest due to their national broadcaster facing some financial difficulty.
The full line up of competing countries are:
Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, FYR Macedonia, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and United Kingdom.
Some countries have already begun their national selection process. Malta launched a new version of the X-Factor last month to replace their former selection show MESC. Spain meanwhile has brought back Operacion Triunfo for a second consecutive year, while Albania look set to be the first nation to choose their song for 2019 when Festivali i Kenges hosts its final just before Christmas.
