Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest
However, on three of the five occasions that they have reached the final, they have finished in the top five: placing fifth with "Water" by Elitsa and Stoyan in 2007, fourth with "If Love Was a Crime" by Poli Genova in 2016, and second with "Beautiful Mess" by Kristian Kostov in 2017.The Bulgarian National Television (BNT) is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1 January 1993, thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest since then.The first participant in the contest with a Bulgarian origin is Nora Nova, a jazz and a pop singer who left Bulgaria for political reasons in 1959 and later represented West Germany in 1964.They, however, could not repeat Todorova and Yankulov's result and received only 56 points, placing 11th of 19 competing in the second semi-final, thereby failing to qualify Bulgaria for the final.In October 2009, BNT announced that Miroslav Kostadinov would represent Bulgaria at the 2010 contest in Oslo, Norway, with the song "Angel si ti".In that year she competed with 18 more singers in the final of "EuroBGvision" (where by means of SMS voting the TV audience selects who will represent Bulgaria in the Eurovision Song Contest).Her song was mainly in Bulgarian, but it also contains the phrase "I love you" in 12 other languages, including Turkish, Greek, Spanish, French, and Serbian.[12] On 15 September 2015, it was announced that BNT sent a preliminary application in order to compete in the 2016 contest,[13] and the effective participation was further confirmed on 26 November 2015.Her entry for 2021, "Growing Up Is Getting Old", was internally chosen from a selection of songs from her EP A Little Dramatic,[19] with input from the public and various focus groups.The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers and backing vocalists, among others.