Israel's Eurovision Act Search Has Begun

At the start of October, fans were delighted when Israel announced that they will in fact be able to compete in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest, despite their previous broadcaster, IBA ceased transmission and trading once the Grand Final concluded in Kyiv, after it being picked up by new station IBPC, and the EBU awarding them a bye into the contest, depsite the broadcast station not having full, or complete EBU status. And not wasting any time, they have already broadcast the first episode in their Eurovision act format search - Rising Star.

The unique format is being used for the fourth time to select Israel's Eurovision artist, each editions winner - Nadav Guedj, Hovi Star and Imri Ziv have all qualified for the final respectively, and October 29th saw the first audition show take place, this year the show is planning to run 20 weekly episodes, meaning the culmination will happen around February/March time.

To advance from the auditions, the audience vote on their smartphones or devices if they like an act, the say yes, once they hit 70% the circular barrier they are singing behind will rise, revealing the act to the audience and judges and therefore comforting they are advancing, however, if one of the four judges wants to see an act advances, they can vote "yes" on their voting panel, awarding the act a boost of 10%, in a twist to this year, the hosts can save up to five acts who did hit the required 70% and send them through to the next round, if the hosts choose to save an act they shall advance regardless of their score in the audition.

Five acts advanced from the first audition show - Jackie Gaforov, Adva Omar, Jonathon Mergui, Neta Barzilai and Mor Karbasi, who was the first to benefit from the hosts new saving powers after she only achieved 56% the highest scoring act of the night was Jonathan, who achieved 88% for his rendition of "How Far I'll Go" from the soundtrack of 2016 smash hit film "Moana" Jonathon despite his mature and emotional vocal is only 17 years old, however despite his youthful age he is still a serious possibility for the title, when Nadav won the show at only 16.