Dan Turturică, Director of Romania’s Public Broadcaster, TVR, recently addressed the country’s continued absence from the Eurovision Song Contest.
According to the local press, Dan Turturică highlighted the deteriorating relationship between TVR and Romania’s music industry, particularly record labels. He noted that:
The Romanian Television promotes many artists with whom production companies enter the contest, but the benefits that Romanian Television has from this collaboration, which should be win-win, have not been.
The Head of TVR added that the broadcaster does not have the power to select the songs in order to send the best ones to Eurovision, and the production houses do not support TVR’s focus on quality. He also stated:
We will return to Eurovision when we can truly bring to the Eurovision stage artists from Romania who are truly at the top of the music industry.
Romania’s last participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2023, with Theodor Andrei’s “D.G.T. (Off And On)”, the song scored 0 points in its Semi-Final. Romania actively participated in Eurovision from 1994 until its withdrawal in 2024 due to financial problems.
Image source: EBU / Corinne Cumming | Source: Libertatea
Romania first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994. The country had tried to participate in 1993 but failed to get through the pre-qualifying round. At the 1994 contest Dan Bittman finished 21st in the final scoring 14 points, Romania didn’t make it through to another final until 1998. Romania’s best results in the contest are two third-place finishes. In 2005 Luminita Anghel & Sistem finished 3rd scoring 158 points, while Paula Seling & Ovi finished 3rd in Oslo with the song “Playing with Fire”. Romania missed the 2016 contest due to TVR being removed from the EBU due to debts to the organisation.
Tags: Headline TVR (Televiziunea Română)
