Bulgaria: BNT officially withdraws from Eurovision 2019

The week starts with some sad news for the Eurovision family as the Bulgarian national broadcaster, BNT, announced officially the country withdrawal from Eurovision 2019!
After ongoing rumors and unofficial statements of a possible withdrawal, after Deyan Yordanov’s resignation, coordinator of the Eurovision Project, today the national broadcaster , BNT, officially announced that the country will not be present in Tel Aviv mexrt May. The broadcaster confirmed its withdrawal through its official twitter account this morning.
OFFICIAL STATEMENT | 15 OCTOBER | Sofia, Bulgaria
We are sad to announce that Bulgaria withdraws from #Eurovision. The decision is based on financial reasons because the costs of the project far exceed the financial capacity of BNT according to the Management of the broadcaster— BNT Eurovision Bulgaria 🇧🇬 (@bg_eurovision) October 15, 2018
BNT released the following press release regarding its decision to withdraw from the Eurovision Song Contest:
BNT’s Managing Board has decided that the public broadcaster will not participate at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. The decision is part of the measures that the television management has undertaken to optimize public spending.
For the last two years BNT has organized the Bulgarian Eurovision performance with the support of partners – production companies or professional teams who also participated in the funding.
Nevertheless, the cost of preparing the Bulgarian participation and representative, creating and producing a song, stage performance, producing a music video, and inclusion in the events of the competition program outweigh the reasonable costs that the public television can afford.
In addition to the direct costs of preparing the relevant representative, participating countries also share part of the cost of the competition itself, which this year amounts to 5.3 million EUR.
This year the country was represented by Equinox and the song Bones which finished 14th in the Grand final.