After a week of small turmoil for broadcaster RTCG, with the withdrawal of the winner of their national selection Montesong and the resignation of Montesong’s artistic director Vladana, RTCG has announced that runner-up Nina Žižić will go to Basel for Montenegro, with her song “Dobrodošli”.
A choice to make after NeonoeN’s withdrawal
Last week, on Wednesday, Montenegro organised the first national selection of the 2025 season, Montesong. Rock band NoenoeN won the contest, thanks to a victory in the televote, with their song “Clickbait”.
Rapidly, though, videos emerged online of the band performing “Clickbait” in a 2023 music festival, thus violating the “September 1st rule”. This rule mandates that songs competing in Eurovision on a given year must not have been commercially released or publicly performed before September 1st, on the year before the contest (so, for 2025, before September 1st 2024). Montenegrin broadcaster RTCG started an inquiry on the subject, and had asked the EBU (Eurovision’s organisers) for advice on the matter.
Before the EBU’s opinion arrived, NeonoeN decided to withdraw from Eurovision, letting RTCG choose another entrant for Basel 2025. RTCG then had to face some controversy after Montesong’s artistic director Vladana announced she had resigned for her position and asked for more transparency about the project’s organization, with the broadcaster reacting to Vladana’s position with some answers.
Nina Žižić to Eurovision
The crisis now seems to have abated, and this morning RTCG announced that Nina Žižić will go to Basel next year. Her song “Dobrodošli” came second, and only 13 televotes away from winning the contest (this would have made her level with NeonoeN, but having won the jury vote, she would have been victorious under Montesong’s tie-breaking rules).
I am sure that Nina Žižić will present us in the best light in Switzerland. RTCG will do everything to support the promotion of music and our country, and we are left to join the invitation of the neoneneN band and together we support Nina and Montenegro at Eurovision.
There’s a lot of work ahead of us. RTCG will do everything to support Nina at Eurovision, to support the promotion of music, and our delegation will have numerous administrative obligations towards the European Broadcasting Union, and Nina Žižić will have serious preparations ahead of her.
Antonela Martinović, from RTCG’s Press Team
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