RTS – the national broadcaster in Serbia – has confirmed it will be participating at Eurovision 2026. This comes despite their failure to qualify for the final.
Serbia will not withdraw due to poor results
Following the controversies surrounding the results of the 2025 Contest, Serbian Head of Media Duška Vučinić appeared on RTS’ morning show earlier this month. There, she explained Serbia will not raise questions surrounding Israeli participation. This comes amid calls from several broadcasters for an audit of the televote, as well as the exclusion of Israel from the Contest.
She explained, pointing to Serbia’s former disqualification during the Yugoslav wars:
The question is being asked, not only in Eurovision circles, how is it possible for Israel to participate and Russia not to participate, Ukraine to participate, and so on. That falls into the realm of political questions that I think we should try to answer.
When asked about Serbia’s future in the competition, Vučinić said that RTS would not withdraw from the Contest. This came, despite Princ’s failure to qualify for the final in Basel. Serbia’s placing resulted in its worst finish since entering the Contest as an independent country. However, despite the setback, RTS will not withdraw.
Of all the former Yugoslav republics, including North Macedonia at the time, none made it to the final in 2013. The same thing happened this year.
We got a little angry then and didn’t participate in 2014, which will never happen now, because we realized that we are well positioned, regardless of this year’s ranking.
Duška added that viewership of the show, proportional to the population of the country, remained high. This provided more reasons to remain within the competition. RTS has offered no information on how the country would select their act, but for the past four years Pesma za Evrovizija has been used to choose who will represent the nation.
Serbia’s Eurovision journey
In 2007, Serbia made its debut as an independent country, having previously participated as part of Yugoslavia and Serbia & Montenegro. There, they were represented by Marija Šerifović with “Molitva”, which managed to win the competition. Since their debut, Serbia has participated 16 times (13 of which, where they qualified for the Grand Final).
Princ represented Serbia at Eurovision 2025 in Basel with his song “Mila”. At this year’s competition, Serbia failed to qualify for the Grand Final, finishing in fourteenth place with 28 points in the semi-final.
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News Source: RTS / Evrovizija.rs
Photo Credit: Corinne Cumming / EBU