Konstantinos Zoulas, president of ERT, revealed that Greece's song for Eurovision 2023 will be chosen both by a jury and by the public.
Zoulas mentioned on the show “Studio 4” on ERT1:
“ERT consists of a seven-member committee, which is in charge of the first clarification of the songs, just like last year. This year we had a total of 106 songs submitted, of which 30 were eligible. They also had a company, not necessarily a record label behind them, so there was an organized group behind them. We are before taking and announcing a decision, for the public to participate for the first time in the selection process”.
Plans include that interested citizen will be creating an expanded committee, who will come to the Radio House of Agia Paraskevi, listen to the nominated songs and vote for their favourites. The voting will approximately count as much as the EBU’s vote now.
The president of ERT also added:
“The EBU basically canceled the participation of the committees in the two semi-finals, only the public will vote. In the final, the committee’s choice will be 49.4% and the public’s will be 50.6%. We will do the same, the public will vote at a rate of 50.6% and the committee at a rate of 49.4%. It is democratic and we adapt to the new data. What I am describing is not a national final. It’s a pretty big turnout, it’ll definitely include more than 50 Greek citizen and it’s going to be through a video draw so there’s no question.”
Zoufos also plans on having an age distribution:
“All generations should be represented – obviously younger generations more and older generations less. Next week, probably, we will make this invitation. The director of Corporate Communication, Mrs. Dora Chiraki, decided that no representative and employee of ERT will participate.”
The chosen selection method is not to be seen as a national final, but it clearly is an expanded version of a pure internal selection – an approach that was chosen in the past couple of years to find the respective Greek Eurovision entry.
Greece at Eurovision
After the Eurovision debut in 1974, the country has taken part in the contest 42 times. Helena Paparizou brought the trophy home in 2005 with her uptempo song “My Number One”. Greece became a very successful competitor in the 21st century with 10 out of 14 top ten results, including three 3rd place finishes. The mediterranean country never came last in the contest. Many famous Greek artists were competing for their country in the past, including Anna Vissi, Kati Garby, Sophia Vossou, Thalassa, Sakis Rouvas, Helena Paparizou, Demy and Loukas Yorkas.
Source: ERT
