| Eurovision Song Contest 2025 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Participating broadcaster | Suspilne | |||
| Country |  Ukraine | |||
| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Vidbir 2025 | |||
| Selection date(s) | February 2025 | |||
| Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
| ||||
Ukraine will be represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, which will be held in Basel, Switzerland. The Ukrainian participating broadcaster Suspilne will organise the national final Vidbir2025 in order to select its entry for the contest.
Prior to the 2025 contest, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) until 2016, and the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC/Suspilne) since 2017 had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 19 times since its first entry in 2003. [1] It had won the contest on three occasions: in 2004 with the song "Wild Dances" performed by Ruslana, in 2016 with the song "1944" performed by Jamala, and in 2022 with the song "Stefania" performed by Kalush Orchestra. They had been the runner-up in the contest on two occasions: in 2007 with the song "Dancing Lasha Tumbai" performed by Verka Serduchka and in 2008 with the song "Shady Lady" performed by Ani Lorak. Following the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Ukraine had managed to qualify to final in every contest they participated in thus far. Its least successful result had been 24th place, which they achieved in 2017 with the song "Time" performed by O.Torvald.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, Suspilne organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. Suspilne confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest on 10 September 2024. [2] In the past, the broadcaster had alternated between both internal selections and national finals in order to select its entry. Between 2022 and 2024, Suspilne had set up national finals with several artists to choose both the song and performer to compete at Eurovision, with both the public and a panel of jury members involved in the selection. The method was continued to select the 2025 Ukrainian entry. [3]
Vidbir 2025 will be the ninth edition of Vidbir which will select the Ukrainian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2025. The competition will consist of a final on February 2025. [4]
The selection of the competing entries for the national final and ultimately the Ukrainian Eurovision entry will take place over three stages. In the first stage, artists and songwriters had the opportunity to apply for the competition either through an online submission form. Twenty acts were longlisted and announced on 11 December 2024. [5] The second stage will involve the longlisted artists attending a scheduled audition. Up to nine acts will be selected, while an additional act will be selected from an online selection. [6] The third stage will be the televised final, which will take place in February 2025 and featured the acts vying to represent Ukraine in Basel. The winner will be selected via the combination of votes from a public vote and an expert jury, the latter of which its members will be selected by the public. [7] For the jury member selection, ten candidates were presented to the public which will be able to vote via the Diia mobile application between 16 and 23 December 2024. The three candidates with the most votes will be selected. [8]
| Candidate | Occupation(s) | Score | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andrii Hutsuliak | Winner of Vidbir2023 and Ukrainian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 as part of Tvorchi | TBA | |
| Anna Svyrydova | Television and radio presenter | ||
| Dmytro Shurov | Musician | ||
| Dymtro Zezyulin | Lead singer and composer of the band Latexfauna | ||
| Jamala | Winner of Vidbir2016 and of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 | ||
| Kateryna Pavlenko | Winner of Vidbir2020 and Ukrainian representative in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 as part of Go_A | ||
| Katya Tsaryk | Film director and screenwriter | ||
| Oleh Psiuk | Winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 as part of Kalush Orchestra | ||
| Sasha Chemerov | Musician, singer and producer | ||
| Serhiy Tanchynets | Music producer, singer and musician | ||
Artists and composers had the opportunity to submit their entries via an online submission form which accepted entries between 17 September 2024 and 10 November 2024. Only artists that had not performed in events organized by/located in the territory of "the aggressor state" or illegally entered the territory of Crimea since 15 March 2014 were allowed to apply for the competition, and songs performed in the "language of the aggressor state" were prohibited. [7] [9] 2006 Ukrainian Eurovision entrant Tina Karol, who had been assigned as the new music producer of the competition, reviewed the 374 received submissions and longlisted 20 entries, of which their artists were announced on 11 December 2024. [5] [10] Auditions will later be held where up to nine entries will be shortlisted to compete in the national final. A public online vote will select an additional act among the non-qualifying entries of the auditions by 17 January 2025. [11]
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Ukraine has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 19 times since making its debut in 2003. The current Ukrainian participant broadcaster in the contest is the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC/Suspilne), which has selected its entrant with the national competition Vidbir in recent years. Ukraine has won the contest three times: in 2004 with "Wild Dances" by Ruslana, in 2016 with "1944" by Jamala, and in 2022 with "Stefania" by Kalush Orchestra, thus becoming the first country in the 21st century and the first Eastern European country to win the contest three times. The 2005 and 2017 contests were held in Kyiv, while the 2023 contest was held in Liverpool, United Kingdom, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine has participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest since 2006. Ukrainian public broadcaster UA:PBC, has been responsible for the participation.
Ukraine participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Time" written by Yevhen Halych and Yevhen Kamenchuk. The song was performed by the band O.Torvald. In addition to participating in the contest, the Ukrainian broadcaster National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU) also hosted the Eurovision Song Contest after winning the competition in 2016 with the song "1944" performed by Jamala. NTU organised a national final in collaboration with commercial broadcaster STB in order to select the Ukrainian entry for the 2017 contest in Kyiv. The national selection consisted of three semi-finals, held on 4, 11 and 18 February 2017, and a final, held on 25 February 2017; eight entries competed in each semi-final with the top two from each semi-final advancing to the final. In the final, "Time" performed by O.Torvald was selected as the winner following the combination of votes from a three-member jury panel and a public televote.
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Natsionalnyi Vidbir, informally known as Vidbir, is a Ukrainian musical competition originally organized by Suspilne and STB, which determines the Ukrainian representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. In late August 2021, it was announced that the two broadcasters had terminated their partnership, and that Suspilne was looking for a new selection format for the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, thus bringing an end to the original concept for Vidbir. In October 2021, Suspilne announced that the 2022 edition of Vidbir would be organized by it alone under a new format.
Kostiantyn Mykolaiovych Bocharov, better known by his stage name Mélovin, is a Ukrainian singer and songwriter. He first came to prominence after winning season six of X-Factor Ukraine.
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