After some back and forth over the past few months, the Turkish broadcaster has announced that Turkey will not return to the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm.
A screenshot has been floating around on several websites dedicated to the Song Contest with the following translation:
Turkey decided to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2013. TRT, the national Turkish broadcaster, announced in a communique on their official website on the 14th of December 2012 that Turkey would not compete at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden . The broadcaster’s reasons for withdrawing from the event in 2013 event were that the changes in the voting system of the contest: introduction of 50/50 jury and televoting deliberation, and the Big 5 rule, enabling Spain, Italy, UK, France and Germany to automatically qualify every year for the final. The broadcaster expressed its discontent regarding these rules and felt they were not fair. Source esctoday
This will be the fourth year that Turkey will sit out. Their last participation was in 2012 when Can Bonomo brought home a respectable 7th place.
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Carsten Rene Jensen
November 4, 2015 at 14:59
That´s good news 🙂
Refshaleoen Huseynov
November 4, 2015 at 09:21
Am I the only one who doesn’t want turkey back?