Evropesma

Evropesma (or "Европесма", Serbia's version of the name) or Europjesma ("Еуропјесма" {Montenegro's version of the name}) was a pop festival in Serbia and Montenegro which ran from 2004 to 2006. The winning song represents the country in the Eurovision Song Contest. It is organized by the Serbia and Montenegro union of broadcasters UJRT (consisting of RTS and RTCG). After the dissolution of the state union between Serbia and Montenegro, the semifinal contests took over the role of this festival.

Voting process

RTCG argued that fairly anonymous representatives from Montenegro have little chance against a number of big music stars that generally take part on behalf of RTS, and who are usually famous in Montenegro itself. RTCG failed to engage any of the big Montenegro stars that could actually gain televotes to take part in Montevizija.

Because of this, RTCG demanded that televoting should only be a part of the decision on who is going to win the competition. As a result, there are four judges appointed by RTCG, four by RTS and televoting was the ninth jury member. Points are allocated as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 or 12 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 in 2004).

Winners

*2004 Željko Joksimović (won 2nd place in the ESC)
*2005 No Name (won 7th place in the ESC)
*2006 No Name (disputed by RTS, unverified by UJRT)

2004 event and controversy

The first Evrop(j)esma, held February 21, 2004, in Belgrade, Serbia, featured 24 performers, 19 from Serbia and only 5 from Montenegro. Four of the songs that represented RTS were selected in Beovizija, which was in part a semifinal for Evrop(j)esma. The representatives for RTCG were selected internally, and the others were selected by UJRT. Željko Joksimović won the 2004 Evropesma with "Lane moje", going on to reach second place in the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul, Turkey. It should be noted that the members of the Serbian jury didn't give a single point to the songs that represented Montenegro, which caused some controversy. But, the both sides agreed that Željko Joksimović is the best choice.

In this table, red color denotes songs and jurors from Montenegro, blue those from Serbia.

ee also

* Serbia and Montenegro in the Eurovision Song Contest

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4810250.stm BBC News: Serbia and Montenegro pulls pop entry]
* [http://www.rts.co.yu/euro Radio Television of Serbia Eurovision Page]
* [http://www.rtcg.org/montevizija/index.php Radio Television of Montenegro Eurovision Page]
* [http://www.pesmaevrovizije.com/ Songs from Eurovision]