Under a bilateral agreement with the European Broadcasting Union, the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTCU) has decided to withdraw from participation in the Eurovision 2015 song contest.
According to the NTCU press service, this decision was made due to the unstable financial and political situation, military aggression from the east and the annexation of Ukrainian land. Those processes made the NTCU focus on the most important thing – the urgent formation of a public broadcasting service in Ukraine.
“Thus, all the expanses must be carefully optimized,” the company said.
“We understand that Eurovision is a project of image and prestige. But we don’t have a right to do something bad. And we simply don’t have the money [to do it] well. If someone wants to help us, we’ll be only happy, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to fund such a project on our own. That’s why such decision was made,” NTCU Director General Zurab Alasaniya said in comments on the situation.
However, the company said it hopes that Ukraine in 2016 will again send a contestant to Eurovision.
