Contrary to conflicting reports: The final of “HaKochav Haba” will be held on January 22nd, culminating in the selection of the Israeli representative for Eurovision 2025, to be held in May in Switzerland. The representative will be chosen by the viewing audience and judges.

Eurovision 2025 is approaching, and the Israeli representative for Eurovision will be chosen during the final of “HaKochav Haba 2025”, which will be broadcast live on Wednesday, January 22nd. Last night, during the broadcast of “HaKochav Haba” episode, a promo was aired presenting the final date as January 21st. Today, a contradictory announcement was released, moving the final to Wednesday, January 22nd. Four contestants will compete in the show’s grand finale for a ticket to Basel, Switzerland, where the Israeli representative will need to advance through the semi-finals on May 13th and 15th. The winner will be selected through a combination of audience votes and juries’ decisions.

Selection Process

The Israeli representative will be chosen through “HaKochav Haba” program after the public broadcasting corporation decided once again to select Israel’s Eurovision 2025 representative in collaboration with Keshet 12. This partnership has resulted in Israel qualifying for the final seven consecutive times, with the highlight being Netta Barzilai’s first-place win with “Toy,” bringing Eurovision to Israel in 2019.

Song Selection

A professional team from the public broadcasting corporation has compiled a list of about 120 creators from all genres of Israeli music. These creators have been approached to write and propose songs that could represent Israel at Eurovision 2025. Additionally, the winner of “The Next Star” will be allowed to submit a song.

The public broadcasting corporation emphasized to the creators that the Eurovision song can be in any language, but this year’s entry must include at least a few sentences in Hebrew.

Creators who received an invitation can send their proposed songs until February 2nd. Subsequently, a committee comprising professionals from the public broadcasting corporation and Keshet, with musical and television expertise, will convene. The committee is expected to listen to the songs and choose the most suitable entry.

Committee Composition:

The committee will consist of seven members:

• • Committee Chairperson – Director of the corporation’s music stations
  • Two radio representatives – Music editors chosen by the committee chairperson
  • Two television representatives – Head of the Entertainment and Culture Department at ‘Kan’ and an additional representative of her choice
  • Two Keshet representatives

Each committee member’s vote will be based on professional criteria, including: quality and originality of lyrics and melody, suitability of the song for the representing artist, suitability for the Eurovision competition, the song’s chances of success in Eurovision, appropriateness for representing the corporation as a public broadcaster, the overall impression left by the song, and other relevant criteria as decided by the committee.

The candidate songs will be played anonymously to the committee, without revealing the identities of the song’s creators. Creators participating in the Israeli song selection process cannot be involved in creating a song for another country for Eurovision 2025.

According to the regulations, if the committee does not find a suitable song, it may issue a public call for additional songs, choose a song publicly released after September 1st, or select a song from other entries submitted to the corporation for Eurovision participation between 2022-2024.

Israel in Eurovision 2024

“Hurricane” is the name of the song performed by singer Eden Golan, who was chosen to represent Israel after winning the tenth season of “HaKochav Haba”. Israel advanced to the final after winning the second semi-final with 194 points, and in the grand final reached fifth place with 375 points. In the public vote, Israel came in second place, just 14 points behind the first place.

This is the second consecutive time that Israel has reached the top five, an achievement it had not attained since its streak of successes in 1998-1999.