The weekend in review: Four new participants for Eurovision 2019

New acts for Tel Aviv

Germany

S!sters will sing for Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final on the 18th of May. They won a very close national final winning the international jury vote by a single point over Makeda. Aly Ryan won the Eurovision Jury vote, leaving S!sters two points behind Makeda with the televote result to come, but they topped the public vote to claim Germany's ticket to the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. Read more..

Denmark

Leonora, singing from a giant chair, gathered the support of 42 percent of the votes, leaving Julie & Nina (35 percent) and Sigmund (23 percent) behind. Love Is Forever was written and composed by Lise Cabble, Melanie Wehbe and Emil Lei. Read more..

Hungary

Joci Pápai was selected as Hungary's delegate after two rounds of voting. After each contestant had a chance to hit the stage, the jury alone determined that Joci Pápai, Acoustic Planet, Bogi Nagy and Bence Vavra would advance to the next superfinal round. From there, the results were based entirely on public televoting. The show came to a celebratory close when the four hopefuls returned to the stage quickly after voting ended, and Joci was almost immediately announced the winner. The song Az én apám was written by Molnár Ferenc Caramel and composed by Molnár Ferenc Caramel and Joci Pápai. Read more..

Lithuania

Jurius received twelve points from the professional jury, as well as from the viewers at home. Monika Marija finished second, receiving ten points from each. Jury and viewers were in complete alignment about the ranking of the songs. Read more..

National winner

Ukraine

MARUV has won national selection Vidbir 2019 with her Siren Song. She received 5 points from the jury and 6 points from the Ukrainian audience, making her the winner with 11 points. Read more..

Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC announced on Monday, the 25th of February that they have not been able to come to an agreement with MARUV on her becoming the Ukrainian representative at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest. UA:PBC has yet to announce who will become their representative at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.

National final qualifiers

Portugal

The Portuguese Festival da Canção held its second and last semi-final in Lisbon today hosted by Jorge Gabriel and José Carlos Malato. There were eight more songs in contention for the remaining four places in the final and, once again, the decision fell in the votes of the expert panel and televoting in a 50/50 combination. The four qualifiers are NBC with the song Igual a Ti, Surma and Pugna, Madrepaz with Mundo a mudar and Mariana Bragada with Mar doce. The Portuguese final will take place in Portimão next Saturday 2nd of March.

Sweden

This week's Melodifestivalen tour took us to Lidköping, where the final eight participants of the Swedish national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest were presented to the audience for the first time. Two of them qualified for the final thanks to the public vote: John Lundvik with Too Late For Love and Bishara with On My Own. It's Lundvik's second time in a row to qualify directly for the final. Two more songs made their way to Andra Chansen; the second-chance round: Torn by Lisa Ajax and I Do performed by Arvingarna. Next Saturday in Nyköping they will compete in duels for the four remaining spots in the final: Andreas Johnson vs Anna Bergendahl, Vlad Reiser vs Nano, Martin Stenmarck vs Lisa Ajax and Rebecka Karlsson vs Arvingarna.

Check out our calendar for upcoming broadcast dates of national selections and announcement dates for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.