“Only 30 seconds of Mistakes”: Vladana Vučinić, host of Montenegro’s national selection show, defends herself against critics and reveals behind-the-scenes events following technical difficulties during the broadcast.
Last Wednesday, The Montenegrin national broadcaster RTCG aired “Montesong 2024,” the country’s Eurovision pre-selection show, which was plagued by numerous technical difficulties and received harsh criticism. Vladana Vučinić, Montenegro’s representative for Eurovision 2022 and the show’s host, faced significant backlash for her performance, which included confusion with scripts, lengthy pauses, and timing errors during important announcements.
Three hours of broadcast came to an end and a representative was chosen for Montenegro for Eurovision 2025 – the band NeonoeN. At the end of the broadcast, the chaos overflowed, as it seemed that the pair of hosts were not synchronized and didn’t know for certain which host’s role was now in the line-up, as both Vladana and the host beside her, Marko Todorović, interrupted each other and spoke together in certain segments. And they also didn’t know the name of the person presenting the award to the winning band NeonoeN, when the moment came to present the trophy. Vladana even cut off a sentence in the middle when she discovered that she had mispronounced the word “Zahvalim” (translates to: “Thank you”), which was said in the previous sentence.
Vladana Responds to Hostile Treatment from the Audience
On her Instagram account, Vladana responded to the malfunctions saying:
“The haters focused only on the last 30 seconds of the end. Who ignores three hours of broadcast without mistakes, […] Unfortunately, the last 30 seconds of the show’s conclusion, where my colleague, Marko Todorović, and I read the list of sponsors, became a hot topic in numerous responses, especially among haters and certain media that focuses on mishaps. Due to technical issues with the headphones, there was a moment where we cut each other off and we apologize for that.”
Vladana emphasized that the three hours of the broadcast, apart from the last 30 seconds, went in the most professional manner, expressed great pride in the team that worked, and criticized the audience, which was not eager to vote and the scoring was distributed by few votes:
“Where was your support? Out of tens of thousands of viewers that day, even one Nina Žižić from Nikšić, couldn’t get 500 votes from her own city’s residents. Even the winner, whoever it was, couldn’t get 500, let alone a thousand votes. This is a very serious problem with us as people, not the mistakes that happened after 3 hours of broadcasting when concentration wasn’t at its peak under the pressure of a live broadcast.”
Montenegro in Eurovision 2022
“Breathe” is the name of the song performed by singer Vladana Vučinić, who represented Montenegro in the second semi-final of Eurovision 2022. The song was written by Vladana herself along with Darko Dimitrov, who has composed 11 songs for the competition over the years for Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro. Dimitrov’s most successful entry is “Proud,” which represented North Macedonia in Eurovision 2019 and reached seventh place. “Breathe” was performed in English and Italian and was dedicated to Vladana’s mother, who had passed away a year earlier from COVID-19. Vladana only reached 17th place (second to last) in the second semi-final with just 33 points. This is one of the most disappointing results Montenegro has experienced in the competition.
Eurovision 2025: This will be Montenegro’s 13th participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Montenegro joined the competition in 2007 and achieved its best result in Eurovision Song Contest 2015 when singer Knez reached 13th place with the song “Adio”.
