Switzerland’s Eurovision 2023 entry will be released on March 7, according to the Swiss French commentator Jean-Marc Richard, who commentates Eurovision for the Swiss French subsidiary channel of SRG-SSR, RTS.
Internal selection used
As previously reported, the Swiss broadcaster for Eurovision, SRG-SSR, confirmed the selection process for Switzerland’s next Eurovision entry would be the same as last year. As before with the process that selected Luca Hanni, Gjon’s Tears and Marius Bear, it is an internal selection.
According to Richard, the entry will be from Switzerland’s national music scene, will be of “international” level and will be aiming to achieve a result equal to or better than those three above mentioned entrants, who came 4th, 3rd and 17th respectively. The ultimate ambition is of course: “to even win the competition a third time in order to organize it again on Swiss soil”.
The internal process
The submissions took place in August and September and ultimately about 500 songs were shortlisted from the entries received. This was reduced to 50 after being tested by internal music professionals, and these 50 were put before an internal jury, made up of both Swiss representatives and international experts.
From those 50, six songs were selected to be worked on behind closed doors, performed in front of the jury, reduced to two and these two will perform again to make the final choice.
The announcement of the result of this process, and the subsequent presenting of the artist, song of Switzerland’s Eurovision entry to the press, will all take place on March 7th.
Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022
Switzerland won the first ever Eurovision contest in 1956 with Lys Assia. They also won in 1988, where Celine Dion took the crown.
Last year, Marius Bear and his emotional ballad, ‘Boys Do Cry‘, became the 62nd appearance of Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest. During the contest in Turin, Switzerland qualified from the first Semi-Final in 9th place. Following an emotive performance in the Grand Final, Marius achieved a respectable 17th place with 78 points.
This followed two very successful years for Switzerland in the contest, a 4th place in 2019 and 3rd place in 2021 as described above. However these three consecutive qualifiers are a huge turnaround of Switzerland’s fortunes relative to earlier in the 2010s and the 2000s, where between 2007 and 2018 inclusive, Switzerland only qualified 2 times, in 2011 (where they finished last in the final) and 2014. This dramatic change in fortunes so far coincides with the switch to internal selections.
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