The audition stage of the semi-finalists who will compete for a place in the final of the Eurovision 2026 National Selection will take place between February 9 and 11, with 68 songs going to enter the competition.
According to a press release from TVR, the audition stage for the semi-finalists will start on Monday, in Studio 3 of the National Television, a stage which will take place for three days, with the contestants performing the songs live, in front of the jury.
“The Eurovision 2026 Open Workshop sessions will take place on Monday, from 4:00 p.m. and will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday, from 11:00 a.m. The semi-final will be fully broadcast, live, on the TVR+ streaming platform, tvrplus.ro, during the three days of auditions (February 9-11), and the songs will be posted on TVR’s official YouTube page, www.youtube.com/TVRcanaluloficial. The first ten pieces, according to the scores obtained at the Workshop, will compete in the final, from where the jury will choose Romania’s representative at ESC 2026”states Agerpres.
On Thursday, February 12, during the Telejournal at 20:00, the finalists of the National Selection will be announced, live on TVR 1, TVR INFO and on tvrplus.ro.
On Monday, January 12, in Vienna, the city that will host this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the draw was held to divide the participating countries into the two semifinals of the competition. The fates have decided that Romania will enter the first part of the semifinal with number two of the contest, on May 14, 2026.
Under the slogan “United by Music”, the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 will take place in Vienna, with the semi-finals on May 12 and 14 and the final on May 16. In the 64th edition of the music competition, 34 other countries signed up alongside Romania: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and Great Britain.
The previous edition of the music competition was won by the representative of Austria, JJ, with the song “Wasted Love”.
International music competition, organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Eurovision is the largest association of public televisions in Europe. The first edition took place in 1956, in Lugano, Switzerland.
With a tradition of seven decades, the show has become one of the longest-running and most-watched television programs in the world, among the artists who have appeared on the Eurovision stage over the years: ABBA, Julio Iglesias, Celine Dion, Johnny Logan.
Romanian Television, a member of the EBU, is the organizer of the National Selection and has participated in the European competition since 1993.
Romania’s best performances at this competition were: twice third place (Luminiţa Anghel & Sistem – Kiev, 2005; Paula Seling and Ovi – Oslo, 2010) and once fourth place (Mihai Trăistariu – Athens, 2006).
