Belgium: RTBF confirms Eurovision 2022 participation

Belgium: RTBF confirms Eurovision 2022 participation
Thursday, 19 August 2021

  • The Belgic French speaking national broadcaster, RTBF, has confirmed that the country will be present at the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022 in Italy. 

    RTBF has confirmed to ESCToday that Belgium will be taking part in Eurovision 2022 marking its 63rd participation in the contest. The only countries with more appearances are Germany (64), France (63) and the United Kingdom (63).

    Over the last years Belgium has been selecting their Eurovision hopefuls internally, a process which is most likely to take place for the next competition too. However, more details on the Belgic selection for the next competition will be unveiled in the near future. 

     

    Belgium in Eurovision 

    Belgium is one of the countries to have participated in the Eurovision SOng Contest since its first edition back in 1956. After 30 years the country achieves to win the contest in 1986 with the 13 yo Sandra Kim and her entry “J’aime la vie“.

    The country has finished last in the contest 8 times while in two of these occasions didn’t receive any point at all. In 2003 with the group Urban Trad and their song “Sanomi” it almost reached its second victory finishing in the 2nd place, only two points behind Turkey and Sertab Erener with her entry “Every way that I can“.

    Although the country has managed to qualify to the final 5 times the last decade, with Loïc Nottet in 2015 and Blanche in 2017 achieving the best results coming 4th in the final, the last two years it hasn’t been that story.  In 2018 with  Sennek and “A matter of time” , failed to reach the final although the juries ranked her 9th in her semi final. In 2019 internally selected  Eliot represented the country in Tel Aviv with his song “Wake up” which failed to reach the grand final.

    In 2020 Hooverphonic were internally selected to perform "Release Me" in Rotterdam. Following the cancellation of the contest by EBU due to the coronavirus pandemic, a consultation between the VRT, the French-speaking public broadcaster RTBF and Hooverphonic leaded to VRT announcing that the band will represent Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest 2021. RTBF considered it a logical decision to offer Hooverphonic and the VRT this opportunity and postponed their turn for participation for a year until 2022.

    In 2021 the internationally acclaimed represented the country with their song 'The Wrong Place' which qualified to the Grand final where it came 19th with a total of 74 points. 

     

    News Source: ESCToday

    Image: Standaard.be