Malta will say goodbye to their Malta Eurovision Song Contest (MESC) to pick their act for Eurovision 2019. The local Maltese version of the talent show X-Factor will be used to find their artist for the contest in May next year.
Starting October, broadcaster TVM will air the show that will not only look for a brand new Maltese artist, but also their candidate for Eurovision 2019. It is not known how the broadcaster will select a song for this artist when the X-Factor season is over.
Many countries already had their own version of the talent show, but in Malta only the British version of X-Factor was aired in the past. Malta deemed it necessary to change their gameplan for Eurovision since the results in recent years were bad, with non-qualifications in the semi-final (mostly due to a bad televote result) or a low score in the grand final. Only Gianluca Bezzina got the island a top-10 result, back in 2013.
PBS will have to make sure that all participants are 16 or older. 🙂