CyBC, the national broadcaster in Cyprus, also responsible for the participation of the Mediterranean country in the Eurovision Song Contest has seemingly been placed in a difficult situation pertaining to the economic state of the nation at this moment according to several critics. Nevertheless, the rumours of a withdrawal from this years' edition taking place in Sweden following the victory of Loreen with the track Euphoria were officially dismissed soon after they emerged. In thirty (30) participations, Cyprus has managed to contest the final on twenty-five (25) occasions, which is definitely a fair statistic.

CyBC announced earlier this year, that for the second consecutive time, their selection would be internal and indeed, it was revealed that Despina Olympiou would be representing her country with the track An Me Thimase composed by Andreas Giorgalli and penned by Zenon Zindillis. It will be be performed in the second half of the first semi-final. The song is a beautifully sounding Greek ballad which has been kept in it's original form for the simple reason that the lyrics are pretty much impossible to translate. Whilst the betting odds are somewhat unfavourable, people are getting the feel that with the correct staging and draw, this could be a dark horse and qualify. This would be the first back to back qualification for the nation who managed to make the final last year with the track La La Love performed by Ivi Adamou, even performing better than Greece for the first time in years. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news.

Source: CyBC, Showtime

CyBC, the broadcaster responsible for the participation of Cyprus within the annual Eurovision Song Contest is known to be extremely cash strapped but nevertheless went about an internal selection with the aid of several private companies. Their representative at the competition is none other than the stunning Despina Olympiou who will be performing the track An Me Thimase during the first semi-final. As has been the case in the past couple of years, brand new versions and official videos are currently being presented and whilst sifting through the tracks on viral website, YouTube, we came across the preview video for the Cypriot entry.

During the 2012 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, Cyprus managed to perform better than Greece noting that their entry La La Love performed by Ivi Adamou finished in a mid-table position following qualification. This time round, many believe that their participation could very much be an uphill struggle for the simple reason that the song might not actually be everyone's cup of team but in my opinion has a stunning charm around it carried by the grace of an elegant performer whom we should be speaking to in a matter of days. We would like you to view the video clip and stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news as soon as it becomes available.

Source: CYTA Mobile

CyBC and RTVSLO decided to present their entries for the Eurovision Song Contest on the very same day considering that they had undergone extensive discussions in recent months over their future within the event especially in a time of economic crisis. An internal selection by a committee looking after the participation in the international competition had shortlisted a couple of names by it seems that with the support of a number of companies, Despina Olympiou was a clear front runner and as a matter of fact, she was selected with the song entitled An Me Thimase composed by Andreas Giogallis to the lyrics of Zenon Zindillis. There wasn't a particular presentation show planned, rather a press conference during an afternoon programme but it seems that the media enjoyed the track.

As expected, An Me Thimase is a ballad in Greek and the title translates into If You Remember Me. Cyprus has an intriguing history at the Eurovision Song Contest and are coming off a lot of exposure noting that Ivi Adamou and her entry La La Love managed to reach the final in Baku, Azerbaijan prior to achieving a mid-table position, just a place above neighbours Greece who have been known to reach the top ten on successive occasions. Despina Olympiou seems to be thrilled with the opportunity to represent her country at the Eurovision Song Contest and showed grace and elegance during the press conference. She will be making her first guest appearance during Eurosong 2013 - A Mad Show, in which the Greek representative will be selected, on Monday 18th February 2013. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news from the Mediterranean when it becomes available.

Source: CyBC, Eurovision.tv

The 2013 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will be taking place in Malmö, Sweden which people will surely remember as last having been the host back in 1992, seeing to the victory of Linda Martin with the track Why Me? written by Johnny Logan for Ireland. At this point in time, entries have been selected and publicly presented by Albania, Ukraine, Malta, Iceland, Switzerland, Lithuania, and Belarus although, final versions will be expected in due course. On the other hand, earlier today, three broadcasters confirmed that they will be unveiling their entries for the showcase within the next couple of days with a presentation show each.

CyBC for Cyprus and RTVSLO for Slovenia have decided to unveil their entries on Valentine's Day, meaning that it would be on the same night that Germany will be selecting their entry through a three way voting procedure featuring a professional jury, a radio jury and a public vote. Cyprus will be represented by Despina Olympiou with a ballad performed in Greek co-written between Zenon Zintillis and Andreas Georgallis. The show starting at 15:00 CET is entitled Mazi and will be broadcast online. Slovenia will be represented by Hannah Mancini who hails from the United States but has been residing in the Balkan nation for the past six years. 

In FYR Macedonia, more details have been revealed at this point in time with the performers being Vlatko Lozanoski and Esma and the track bearing the name Opsesija (Obsession). The presentation show has been setup for the 27th February during a special show which will be airing on both MKRTV 1 and MKRTV Sat. FYR Macedonia will be the only nation out of the three competing alongside Malta in the upcoming edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, also within the same section of the second semi-final. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news.

Source: CyBC, RTVSLO, MKRTV 1

It seems like yesterday that the year had just begun but the first month has already passed and thus comes February which will be an extremely busy month of selection procedures in several countries but nevertheless, some have decided on making internal selections whilst revealing dates in which their respective entries will be revealed to the general public. The latest two countries to confirm their artist are Cyprus and Slovenia who followed suit in that order earlier today. They have both decided on sending female performers with a specific genre, in order to represent the best of their nations' music scene. It is also important to note that both countries will be performing within the first semi-final, the one which includes just sixteen (16) participants.

The first artist to be selected and revealed this morning was Despina Olympiou who will be taking to the stage to represent the small Mediterranean Island of Cyprus. CyBC, the broadcaster had made a shortlist of entries in recent weeks and had been looking at all of the possibilities before finally taking the stance, finding a sponsor in the form of Vodafone Mobile and make the selection. Despina is popular also in Greece and has released a total of six albums in thirteen years. The track which is yet untitled is going to be in Greek and will be written by Andreas Giogallis and Zenon Zindilis, the latter of which having penned the lyrics for the Eurovision Song Contest entry back in 1998 entitled Genesis and the former composed the music for the 1996 entry entitled Mono Yia Mas. Therefore, experience in the event is definitely something that does not elude them. Despina is currently working on a brand new album entitled Mikra Mistika which is expected to be released at one point during the year and her participation in the Eurovision Song Contest will definitely aid the promotion.

RTVSLO, the Slovenian broadcaster responsible for the participation had last month announced that they will be holding an internal selection for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest and indeed, in an unexpected announcement, it was revealed that Hannah will be representing the nation. The up and coming performer who apparently has been in the United States for some time has already tried to go to the international showcase back in 2011 having performed the track Ti Si Tisti alongside Sylvain and Mike Vale. Potential entries where submitted to the broadcaster during the past couple of weeks, by five well respected songwriters and one of them has been selected for Hannah to perform in the first semi-final of the 2013 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. This is the very first time that Slovenia have selected their entry internally and one would hope that their choice is successful. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news about the upcoming international showcase as well as the nations' selections as soon as they become available. 

Source: CyBC, RTVSLO

CyBC, the broadcaster responsible for the participation of Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest have seemingly made their internal decision with regards to the artist who will be doing the honour on their behalf at the international showcase with Valando Tryfonos rumoured to be their thirty-first representative and following the success achieved by Ivi Adamou and her entry La La Love last year which not only saw to their qualification into the final and finishing just ahead of neighbouring country Greece but also saw charting success in Sweden. Valando Tryfonos might have been the choice that several people were expected having tried to go to the event for both Cyprus and Greece in the past by taking part in their national selections in 2006 and 2011 respectively with the tracks After You and The Time Is Now.

CyBC will be making an official announcement on Friday with regards to the representative choice but nevertheless, media reports are seemingly publishing that the track she will be represented Cyprus with at the Eurovision Song Contest will eventually be written by Michalis Hatzigiannis who built his singer/songwriter credibility following his participation in 1998 with the song Genesis which had ranked in eleventh place. It is highly expected that the track in itself will be ballad due to the versatile vocals that Valanto had been known to provide. This is the second consecutive year that a major record label is supporting the Cypriot entry at the Eurovision Song Contest with Universal Music Greece taking over from where Sony Music Greece left off last year. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for the latest news from the Mediterranean Island of Cyprus.

Source: CyBC, Oikotimes

Since the introduction of the semi-final system, one of the countries that has seemingly not been performing well has been Cyprus noting that they have only managed to qualify to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest on three occasions, in 2004 with Stronger Every Minute performed by Lisa Andreas, in 2010 with Life Looks Better in Spring sung by Jon Lilygreen and The Islanders and last year as Ivi Adamou took to the stage with an energetic performance of La La Love. CyBC, the Cypriot broadcaster has pushed their strong case with regards to ratings and qualification in two of the past three years to enter the 2013 competition and an announcement with regards to the chosen performer is set to be made at some point on Tuesday 15th January.

CyBC have been having meetings with record labels which will most likely finance the participation of the country in Malmö, Sweden and it seems that a shortlist of five possible representatives which include; Vera Boufi, Filippos Konstantinos, Giorgos Doukas, Despina Olympiou and Valanto Tryfonos. It seems that some of them also bring about some pedigree with either a national final or a Eurovision stage noting that Valanto has tried to represent Cyprus in 2006 and Greece in 2011 whilst Filippos has already represented his country the prestigious international competition as part of the group ONE in 2002. Cyprus have been able to reach the top ten at the Eurovision Song Contest since 2004 and will be hoping to succeed with their entry this year. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news as soon as it becomes available.

Source: Oikotimes

The European Broadcasting Union has been pretty adamant about putting off rumours of a mass withdrawal from the upcoming edition of the Eurovision Song Contest and therefore succumbed to releasing the list of participating nations quite early due to the international media coverage which might have had a negative impact on the competition especially noting that Malmö is making several adjustments in order to accommodate a different type of show than what many have seen in recent years. The financial situation around the continent has not been a help and three of the four withdrawals; Bosnia & Herzegovina, Portugal and Slovakia have singled out this decision as the factor behind their pulling out with Turkey on the other hand believing that the recent amendments of the regulations at the event have somewhat put them in a disadvantaged position hence their disappointing results.

The Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest at the European Broadcasting Union, Jon Ola Sand is quite upbeat about the number of participating countries believing that despite the economic situation, public broadcasters are very much committed to the traditional element that the contest has created over time. In fact, since the semi-final system was introduced back in 2004, there have always been between 36 and 43 participating nations and the 39 that will take part in 2013 are similar to the amount that took part in 2010 when the competition was also held in a Scandinavian nation with Oslo, the capital city of Norway playing the role of host. Losing three countries to economic reasons was quite disappointing but nevertheless, Sand is quite 'surprised' by the decision of Turkey noting that they 'never formally objected' the rules as regulations which were brought in back in 2009, a year in which Turkey finished in fourth place.

• Albania (RTSH)
• Austria (ORF)
• Armenia (AMPTV)
• Belarus (Ictimai TV)
• Belarus (BTRC)
• Belgium (RTBF)
• Bulgaria (BNT)
• Croatia (HRT)
• Cyprus (CyBC)
• Denmark (DR)
• Estonia (ERR)
• Finland (YLE)
• France (France 3)
• Georgia (GPB)
• Germany (NDR)
• Greece (ERT)
• Hungary (MTV)
• Iceland (RÚV)
• Ireland (RTÉ)
• Israel (IBA)
• Italy (RAI)
• Latvia (LTV)
• Lithuania (LRT)
• FYR Macedonia (MKRTV)
• Malta (PBS)
• Moldova (TRM)
• Montenegro (RTCG)
• The Netherlands (TROS)
• Norway (NRK)
• Romania (TVR)
• Russia (C1R)
• San Marino (SMTV)
• Serbia (RTS)
• Slovenia (RTV SLO)
• Spain (TVE)
• Sweden (SVT)
• Switzerland (SRG SSR)
• Ukraine (NTU)
• United Kingdom (BBC)

As you can see, the leading European broadcasters including the Big Five featuring; the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Italy return for yet another competition noting that their results are improving especially with regards to three in particular. Some countries have already revealed their entries noting that national finals have already taken place in Belarus, Switzerland, Belgium and Lithuania whilst artists have been chosen for The Netherlands, Spain and Montenegro. Despite less countries than last year, the song quality thus far looks to be quite intriguing and this could be a strong edition for the Eurovision Song Contest with Sweden surely organising it to the best ability and letting it known that whoever did not want to participate would have missed out on a great opportunity. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news as soon as it becomes available.

Source: Eurovision.tv

The city of Malmö in Sweden will be hosting the 2013 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest following the victory of Loreen with the track Euphoria co-written by Thomas G:Son and Peter Bostrom but thus far, it has been somewhat under a cloud of uncertainty in terms of participation with foreign media very skeptical about those who will eventually manage to participate especially following the official withdrawals of Poland and Portugal back in November. In recent weeks, there has been a lot of speculation of whether certain countries such as Greece and Cyprus will continue taking part due to the fact that they have been economically weakened in recent months. Whilst Greece are yet to fully announce their intentions, Cyprus have now officially confirmed their participation with CyBC making their intentions clear late during the day yesterday. More details about their internal selection will be revealed in due course.

Cyprus is one of the countries that has not managed to win the Eurovision Song Contest with their best result being a fifth position achieved on three occasions; the first time being in 1982 with the track Mono I Agapi performed by Anna Vissi, the second time round coming at the fate of Hara and Andreas Constatinou with the song Mana Mou and the last time thus far came thanks to Lisa Andreas with the ballad Stronger Every Minute. Since the introduction of the semi-final format, the results have not been that positive with only three qualifications but one of them came this year thanks to Ivi Adamou and her entry La La Love which was a commercial success all over Scandinavia. As a matter of fact, for the very first time in years, Cyprus managed to outperform Greece by finishing in sixteenth place. Indications originally shown months ago that Giorgos Papadopoulos will be doing the honours are seemingly true and this would be quite the coup having written tracks for Anna Vissi, Helena Paparizou and Constantinos Christoforou. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for all of the latest news as soon as it becomes available.

The Mediterranean Island of Cyprus has not had a stellar record in the Eurovision Song Contest since the introduction of the semi-final system within the annual Eurovision Song Contest, only being present in the final stage for a total of four times including earlier this year thanks to Ivi Adamou and her entry La La Love which was a huge hit in Cyprus, Greece, Sweden, Denmark and Norway respectively. The participation this year was slightly in doubt in the weeks leading up to the competition due to a number of financial issues which needed to be dealt with accordingly and they ended up taking part due to the fact that Sony Music Greece paid for all of the expenses. It seems that CyBC have maintained their stance for the upcoming year as the competition moves to Malmo, Sweden with a major record label pushing an artist with the agreement, that they would pay for all of the promotion and expenses associated with the competition.

CyBC seems to have been in contact with Heaven Music, an independent record label based in Athens, Greece which was founded back in 2001 and features a host of new, upcoming artists including former Cypriot representative; Evdokia Kadi as well as Greek representative; Kalomira. The individual being seemingly pushed is Giorgos Papadopoulos who is Cypriot and has worked with a host of stars being an accomplished singer/songwriter. Amongst the people he worked with there are a number of former Eurovision Song Contest representatives including; Anna Vissi, Constantinos Christoforou and Helena Paparizou. He has been working in the music industry since 2003, working on a number of extended plays featuring a small number of tracks but then in 2008, he released his debut album leading to another two in 2010 and 2012 respectively. He has managed to reach the top ten in Cyprus and the top twenty in Greece on each respective occasion. Executives at CyBC have met with the artist and the management at Heaven Music and an agreement seems to have been reached with the final signature set to go forth in a couple of days or weeks. Stay tuned to escflashmalta.com for the latest news as soon as it happens.

Source: Showtime Cyprus