The failure of Blanca Paloma in Eurovision causes a sudden dismissal on TVE
Televisión Española moves token because it does not want bad results: it restructures the Benidorm Fest and dismisses the person in charge of the contest Eva Mora, who already has a surprising substitute.
Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE) has just announced important changes that affect the entire framework of the public entity related to the Eurovision Song Contest. Everything seems to indicate that the failure of the last chosen to represent us, Blanca Paloma, has provoked a reaction from the leadership of TVE and has carried out these changes by surprise.
Televisión Española has restructured the board of directors of both the Spanish delegation at the festival and Benidorm Fest. Eva Mora, head of the Spanish Delegation at the Eurovision Song Contest since August 2021, has been removed from her position and will be replaced by Ana Bordas, until now director of RTVE Originals and who already held this position from 2017 to 2021. The fiasco of the last edition, partly because of the tele-voting, has led to this decision.
Mora has been linked to TVE since 2001 and after a brief departure from the public entity, she was in charge of making the coverage for Televisión Española from 2012 to 2016. For this reason, when she came to her position as Head of Delegation, she proposed to turn around the history of Spain in the contest to give it all the importance it deserves, since we came from a few years in which the department had received a lot of criticism and the results of Spain in the Festival were rather bad.
Alfred and Amaia or Blas Cantó
As we have anticipated in ESdiario, the replacement for Eva Mora will be her predecessor as head of the Spanish Delegation, who was behind the candidacies of Manel Navarro, Alfred García, Amaia Romero, Miki Núñez and Blas Cantó, not too successfully either in terms of results.
Thus, during the stage of Ana María Bordas, Spain did not obtain good results, moving between the last position and position 22. Now, RTVE returns to bet on her to take the reins of the future of Spain in Eurovision.
Blanca Paloma and Eva Mora, before the first rehearsal of Eurovision 2023
The singer Blanca Paloma, representative of Spain in Eurovision 2023, goes to her first rehearsal in Liverpool accompanied by Eva Mora, head of the Spanish delegation of the contest
TVE dismisses its Eurovision boss after the setback of Blanca Paloma and signs Miryam Benedited and Rayden for the Benidorm Fest
Important changes in RTVE in relation to Eurovision and the Benidorm Fest, the pre-selection that the public channel has organized for two years to choose its representative in the popular music festival.
RTVE has dismissed Eva Mora as head of the Spanish Eurovision delegation after two years in office, a time in which the Corporation has achieved a historic third place for Chanel and a disappointing seventeenth place for Blanca Paloma. Ana María Bordas takes over a position that she already held between 2017 and 2021, when Manel Navarro (position 26), Amaia and Alfred (23), Miki Núñez (22) and Blas Cantó (24) participated.
But the changes go beyond Eurovision. Or more here. The public channel has renewed the management team of the Benidorm Fest. The third edition of this contest will be co-directed by Ana María Bordas herself, head of the Spanish delegation at Eurovision and director of Originals for RTVE, and by César Vallejo, deputy director of Premieres for RTVE Play. María Eizaguirre, Director of Communication and Participation at RTVE, will continue to lead the organization of the events and communication of the Benidorm Fest.
The music festival organized by RTVE will also have three musical advisers: Pablo Cebrián, musician, composer and music producer, David Martínez (Rayden), singer and participant in Benidorm Fest 2022, and Tony Sánchez-Ohlsson, producer and composer closely linked to Eurovision.
All of them will form part of a committee of experts that will be made up of a total of ten people related to RTVE, Eurovision and the music industry: José Pablo López, Director of General Content at RTVE, Ana María Bordas, María Eizaguirre, César Vallejo, Pablo Cebrián, Tony Sánchez-Ohlsson, David Martínez (Rayden), Virginia Díaz, director of the program 180 degrees on Radio 3 and presenter of Cachitos de hierro y cromo on La 2, Tony Aguilar, Eurovision commentator on RTVE, and choreographer Miryam Benedited.
Benedited became, despite her regret, the protagonist of the first Benidorm Fest, when Chanel was chosen thanks to the jury's vote instead of Tanxugueiras, who were the public's favorites. The choreographer, who earned much criticism and was the object of unfortunate attacks on social networks, was unable to participate in the second edition as a jury, but she did continue to support the festival and attended its opening. «The public is not capable of being objective when they are very passionate,» she declared in an interview with Informalia.
This committee will be in charge of assessing the proposals that are arriving at RTVE from the opening of the term on May 16 until next October 10. Once concluded, they will select the 16 applicants to win the Bronze Microphone of the Benidorm Fest 2024 and a place to represent Spain in the 68th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Sweden.