Belarus’ Eurovision broadcaster BTRC has been expelled from the European Broadcasting Union. This rules out a Belarusian participation in Italy 2022 and makes Belarus’ return to the Eurovision Song contest and the Junior Eurovision Song contest extremely unlikely.
Let’s take a look at what Belarus has brought to the Eurovision Song Contest since 2004.
The Belarusian entry was selected through a national final, organized by BTRC.
Artists and composers were able to submit their songs and at the closing of the deadline, over 70 entries were received by the broadcaster of which 15 were selected by an expert jury. Alexey Gross withdrew from the national final after it was revealed that his song If I Could Do It All Again, composed by Marc Paelinck and Mathias Strasser, had previously competed in the 2011 Maltese national final.
The final took place on 10 January 2014 at the 600 Metro studio in Minsk. A 50/50 combination of votes from eight jury members made up of music professionals and a public telephone vote resulted in a tie between Now You’re Gone performed by Max Lorens and DiDyuLya and Cheesecake performed by Teo. The tie was resolved after each member of the jury cast one vote for one of the two songs. Teo won and represented Belarus with the self-composed song Cheesecake with lyrics by Dmitry Novik.
At the ESC the song qualified from the second semi-final to compete in the final. Belarus placed 16th in the final, scoring 43 points.