Lithuania: Pabandom Iš Naujo renamed to Eurovizija.LT for 2024’s artist selection

The Baltic country is once again repeating its national selection, but after four editions of Pabandom Iš Naujo has decided to change its name to Eurovizija.LT as the major change, since the format remain very similar to the one used until now.

LRT have not specified the reasons for this change of name and slight variation of the format, especially in view of the good results achieved by all the winners in the Eurovision Song Contest during the four years in which the Pabandom Iš Naujo has been held, achieving positions above 15th place and qualifying for the grand final in all cases.

Eurovizija.LT: Call for entries now open

LRT, the Lithuanian public broadcaster, opens the call for entries until Monday 11 December. This public call for entries is exclusively for Lithuanian artists, however, when between authors there is no such national limitation. In addition, there is no limit to the number of submissions.

Authors who submit a song without a a singer can suggest a singer for whom the song would be suitable, but LRT reserves the right to decide who can voice the song. And where there is a guarantee, is that the song submitted to Eurovizija.LT, will not be eligible for Eurovision in any other national pre-selection or internal process of another country.

Participants who make it to the televised shows will be granted a maximum of €1,500 by the Lithuanian public broadcaster for the production of the song and staging. These expenses must be justified and if a team is not available, LRT will make its professionals available if necessary.

Eurovizija.LT: What will the competition be like?

This year’s competition will finish with qualifying rounds and will be four or five semi-finals, starting on 13 January depending on the quality and quantity of entries received, and a grand final. For the moment the number of participants in each semi-final and the number of semi-finalists who will make it to the final is still undefined .

However, Lithuanian television must accept a minimum of 20 songs from all those submitted, so there will be a minimum of 20 participants. These songs will be selected by Lithuanian television by 18 December 2023.

The artists selected for the televised galas will be able to withdraw their application without financial penalty until 31 December, after which there will be financial consequences, as the number of Eurovizija.LT shows, the number of semi-finalists and the dates for the recording of the national pre-selection, still to be defined, will have already been designed.

As a comething curious, the first five winners of the national pre-selection are contractually obliged to be at LRT’s disposal to record a concert in support of the winner.

Eurovizija.LT: How will the Eurovizija.LT shows work?

The winner will be chosen equally by jury and televote from the semi-final stage, with a simpler process than Pabandom Iš Naujo. Following the Eurovision format of 12 points for the most voted and 1 point for tenth place, with the results being revealed at the end of the show. For the first time this year the TV juries will not comment on the performances and their scores will be given as a whole, and not broken down, at the end of the gala with votes from 12 to 1.

In the semi-finals, the participants (the number has yet to be determined) with the most votes will qualify for the final, where the format will vary slightly. In the final, the three entries with the highest scores from the combination of jury and televote will go through to a Super Final, where the decision of the Lithuanian artist in Malmö will be decided exclusively by the televote.

Importantly, in the event of a tied score, the winner of the jury vote will be selected over the televote.

Eurovizija.LT: When will the shows and the final take place?

Lithuanian television has announced the date when Lithuania will star choosing its representative for Eurovision 2024 on a very special year, as marks the 30th anniversary of its first participation in Eurovision back in 1994.

The new Lithuanian national final, Eurovizija.LT, will start on Saturday 13th January 2024. This start date gives two possible dates for the final, taking into account that there will be 4 or 5 semi-finals depending on the number of final participants and entries received by LRT.

In case of 5 semi-finals, the final of Eurovizija.LT 2024 would be on Saturday 17th February 2024. If there are only 4 semi-finals, the final of Eurovizija.LT 2024 will be held one week earlier, on Saturday 10th February 2024.

This will be the broadcasting schedule of Eurovizija.LT 2024 with the two possible options:

Eurovizija.LT replaces Pabandom Iš Naujo

Pabandom Iš Naujo was created in 2020 as a renovation of the previus national final, Eurovizijos Atranka, the Lithuanian national final used since 1999, which in recent years had brought poor results to the Baltic country.

After a reformulation of the LRT team, in 2020 they opted for this format in which the number of shows were reduced and musical quality was improved. The Roop won the first edition of the renewed Lithuanian pre-selection with ‘On Fire’ and were one of the favourites for Eurovision 2020 until their cancellation by Covid-19.

In 2021, with a direct place in the final assured after the cancellation of Eurovision 2020, The Roop once again won the ticket to Rotterdam with ‘Discoteque ‘. The last edition held at the beginning of 2023 saw Monika Linkytė win with her song “Stay”, which subsequently achieved an 11th place last May in Liverpool.