Back on the 1st of November, Montenegro’s national broadcaster RTCG opened the call for songs for Montevizija 2018, a festival where Montenegro’s Eurovision entry for Lisbon is going to be selected. Slightly over two months later, RTCG confirmed that they have received a total of 31 entries.

All of the submitted songs are now going to be checked, and a specially formed pre-selection jury will listen to them, in order to select the best five which are going to be competing in the televised final, on the 17th of February in Podgorica. The members of the preselection jury are all going to be music industry professionals from Montenegro, or from the region.

In the televised final, the winner, and Montenegro’s entrant in Eurovision 2018 is going to be selected via televoting only. As a reminder, this is the first time in 11 years that Montenegro is selecting their entry entirely in a national selection. Last, and the only time this was the case was back in 2007, when Stevan Faddy won MontenegroSong with the song “Ajde kroci”, but failed to qualify for the Grand Final in Helsinki, finishing 22nd in the semi final.

Slavko Kalezic was internally selected to represent Montenegro last year in Kiev, where his song “Space” ended 16th in the Semi Final. Knez managed to score Montenegro’s best result at Eurovision in Vienna in 2015, when his song “Adio” finished in 13th place.