At the end of February 2023, Polish pre-selections for the 67th Eurovision Song Contest organized in Liverpool took place. The choice of Blanka and the song “Solo” aroused much controversy. Internet users pointed out the singer’s insufficient vocal skills and accused Telewizja Polska of breaking the elimination rules.
Part of the journalistic community that specializes in Eurovision had a similar opinion. They also listed numerous inaccuracies in the competition, including: when selecting the jurors, including, for example, Agustin Eggurola. Blanka herself also commented on the scandal, only confessing that she had become a victim of hate and that winning brought her more sadness than joy.
Blanka went to Liverpool. What she won there was not victory, but respect. TVP did not want to return to the topic of pre-selection
By May the situation had changed dramatically. The singer began to work dynamically on her voice and showed the improvement of her skills on social media, through which she reached the youngest audience. They called her “Bejba”, which is a joking reference to the first word of her Eurovision song “Solo”. Unfortunately, despite better skills, Blanca did not manage to conquer Europe and ended up in 19th place in the final.
After the competition, the controversy surrounding her election as representative returned. OGAE (The Association of Eurovision Song Contest Enthusiasts) in the second half of May 2023 sent another appeal to TVP asking for all information of interest:
On behalf of the community of fans and journalists interested in the Eurovision Song Contest, we asked TVP to reveal the results of the Polish pre-selection ‘Here beats the heart of Europe! We are choosing the hit for Eurovision 2023 under the right of access to public information. We will inform you immediately about the response and further actions taken,” it was reported in May.
After hearing the appeal, Telewizja Polska refused to allow the organization access to public information, citing business secrets. However, OGAE did not give up and decided to file a complaint against the public broadcaster to the Provincial Administrative Court.
– We do not agree with the position of the public broadcaster, which indicated the protection of trade secrets as the reason for the refusal. In our opinion, there is no basis for this. Therefore, out of concern for the selection of next year’s Polish representative for Eurovision, we decided to continue our efforts to ensure the transparency of the selection results – it was written on the website.
They again requested access to public information. They are counting on a different reaction from the new TVP authorities
Now, when the so-called good change, fans of the Eurovision Song Contest from OGAE Polska decided to turn to the new authorities of Telewizja Polska. They are asking for disclosure of the details of the pre-selection, including the exact results of viewers’ voting.
On behalf of the community of fans and journalists interested in the Eurovision Song Contest in Poland, for the second time we applied to TVP with an attempt to reveal the results of the Polish pre-selection “Here beats the heart of Europe! We choose the hit for Eurovision 2023” as part of access to public information. We will inform you immediately about the response and further actions taken, we read.
Let us recall what journalists associated with the competition have specific reservations about. This includes: about a change in the voting system four days before the competition (the new system was intended to limit the viewers’ voting power at the expense of the jury’s verdict), incomplete presentation of the results during the live television broadcast, the composition of the jury (including the cooperation of juror Agustin Egurrola with Blanka) and details of the voting composition judge (these were never disclosed).
Interestingly, this year there have been changes in the selection of the Polish representative. The decision will be made by an internal committee, the composition of which has not yet been revealed. Anyone who is over 16 years old and has Polish citizenship can apply. Applications can be submitted until Friday, February 2, at 10 p.m., to eurowizja@tvp.pl.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
