42 participants we had in Baku. If we're lucky, we'll have 40 in Malmö. Something isn't going right there in Geneva.

It started with the somewhat expected Portuguese withdrawal. RTP had financial issues and isn't happy with the contest at the moment.
Then came Poland, who were expected to come back, but didn't...
As if that wasn't bad enough, also Slovakia seems to have withdrawn.
But the most shocking of all withdrawers is definitely Bosnia-Herzegovina. They announced today that it's not wise to spend money on participation, when people in the country live in hunger. Who would ever have thought that Bosnia would withdraw?

Was that it? No, because there's still Greece and Slovenia who have said it'll be a tough decision. Slovenia will say something today, but I expect them to stay, especially now EBU will definitely give them a call today.
Greece simply can't withdraw, can they? Or at least, it's not likely for them. Yes, they're in a crisis, but it's Greece.

So that puts us below 40, no big issues there. Funny enough, someone told me (and this could just be worth nothing) that EBU will have a surprising name on the final list. Any guess who it could be?

But the biggest question: what's going on here? In the past years, EBU offered low(er) fees to the participants with financial issues. Why don't they offer Bosnia a lower fee? Why don't they offer Slovakia a lower fee? To offer Poland and Portugal lower fees would be nonsense, as financial issues aren't their only reason to withdraw.

Well, hopefully Greece and Slovenia will be in. I am shocked about B&H though, I didn't know

No one did... even last week Bosnia said things as: We're still discussing, but not planning to withdraw.
That made me assume that as soon as they would confirm, they would reveal their artist. What else could they have been discussing?
But it seems that the discussion was about participating after all...

Latest update on Bosnia-Herzegovina: they might be there, but not with BHRT, but with the regional channel RTRS - part of BHRT but completely autonomous...

Indeed..

Latest one: Turkey withdraws!

In my opinion there are 2 reasons on why so many countries decided to withdraw:

1.Crisis: crisis brings not only discomfort,povery and will on saving resources, but cuts off important musical events like Eurovision Song Contest which, most of the times is considerated like an EXtra for television.
2.They got fed up with 12 exchange or poor results. So, they thought: What's the reason of being in getting bad results and, almost, ridicule themselves?

well that was a quote for Portugal and Slovakia, I think for Turkey the reasons might be others. And about 12s exchange this pleases only countries who receive them...maybe this cannot be the main reason but imo it might inluence a bit.

I told you before: some people would pay for it to have it the same way as Eurovision. 'Decided by the production' etc ...

I thought they knew the sentence 'Spain 12 points' very well in Portugal though.
I think there it's really the money. But as the broadcaster here said: It's expensive, but we get 3 live shows and if we had to make 3 evenings of live television ourselves it would be more expensive. Maybe the EBU will react after this rain of withdrawals.

Part of the reason is definitely the fees. Sweden hardly pays anything for hosting the thing (Malmö Arena is for free, Euroclub hardly costs anything, the stage is cheaper etc), and EBU agrees with it and let other countries be disadvantaged.

I don't know if you realise, but posting 2 points I didn't address them to ALL THE COUNTRIES, reasons are different and not the same 2 for everyone!

Greece, Slovenia, please give us some good news!

who will Azerbaijan give their 12 pts to now ??? This is the start of that stupid Decision to let producers pick the running order ruining the Eurovision

I just heard about Turkey and B&H withdrawing on SVT news. They said it was not for financial reasons but that the new rules were considered unfair.

That's for Turkey indeed, Anette. BiH however is purely financial

I feel sorry about BiH, Portugal, Turkey and Slovakia (especially for Portugal, they sent great songs to Eurovision, sadly that I won't hear portuguese song in this year' Eurovision)... But at least we have 1 returning country, and also Greece in....

Hope for another amazing Eurovision Song Contest! Good luck to all of countries!