Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

EBU has published today the list of participating countries in 64th Eurovision song contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel. This came as no surprise as of ysterday only Moldova hadn't made its intentions clear after San Marino's and Russia's confirmations the past few days. Only Bulgaria will be missing as they let us know last month despite initial intention to participate.  EBU also lists several milestones: the Netherlands and Switzerland will send in their 60th entry, Greece its 40th, Croatia, Estonia and Slovenia their 25th, Latvia and Lithuania their 20th and finally San Marino it's 10th. Germany holds the record of most entries as they send already their 63rd one. They have ben abseent only once over the decades (1996 when Leon with Planet of Blue failed to qualify from the pre-selection causing the creation of Big4, later Big5 when Italy returned). 19 countries are yet to win the contest.... Albania (RTSH), Armenia (AMPTV), Australia (SBS)*, Austria (ORF),...

  Only twice Eurovision song contest has managed to reach the record number of participants, 43, in 2008 and 2011. It seems every time since when 43 has been announced something has happened and it has dropped to 42. Be it Bosnia-Herzegovina wihdrawing or Romania being kicked out. This time it is Macedonia. It's pretty safe to assume Macedonia was in RTP's list of 43* they confirmed last week before EBU made public it has cut off MRT of its services including news, sports etc and of course Eurovision song contest due to a debt of 0,5-22 million euros depending on your source. This recalls the Romanian affair of 2016, only that it happens well ahead of the contest unlike then when Ovidiu Anton was already packing his bags to go to Vienna wheh he and Romania was stopped. This time Macedonia's participation in Junior Eurovision song contest 2017 goes on as planned but Eurovision 2018 itself is a no go, unless the debt is paid or solution found.  *It would be real su...