Pesma za Evroviziju '24

Pesma za Evroviziju  ' 24 (Песма за Евровизију '24; PzE '24) was the third edition of Pesma za Evroviziju, the national final organised by Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) to select the Serbian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The selection consisted of two semi-finals held on 27 and 29 February 2024, respectively, and a final on 2 March 2024, all presented by Dragana Kosjerina and Slaven Došlo.

Format and production
In 2023, RTS confirmed that the national final format Pesma za Evroviziju would once again be organised to determine its representative at the Eurovision Song Contest 2024. The selection consisted of two semi-finals on 27 and 29 February 2024, and a final on 2 March 2024, all held at the RTS Studio 8 in Košutnjak. Fourteen contestants competed in each semi-final, eight of them qualifying for the final. The semi-final each artist would take part in and their running order were revealed on 24 January 2024.

Production
Pesma za Evroviziju  ' 24 was produced by RTS and SkyMusic. PzE '24 had a budget of around 250000 EUR, whilst around 300000 EUR were spent, with an additional 173000 EUR spent in non-monetary contributions by RTS.

Voting
The eight qualifiers from each semi-final and the winner of the final were selected through a 50/50 combination of votes from a jury and from a public televote, with the same system used in the Eurovision Song Contest final: the jury and the public each awarded one set of 12, 10 and 8–1 points each to their 10 favourite entries.

Presenters
Dragana Kosjerina and Slaven Došlo were the main stage presenters of the shows. Kristina Radenković and Stefan Popović hosted the green room segments.

Competing entries
On 26 July 2023, RTS opened an online form for interested artists to submit their entries. The submission period was supposed to last until 1 November 2023, but the window was extended until 10 November a week before the intended closing. Performers were required to hold Serbian citizenship, whilst there were no limitations as to whom could be a songwriter. At least 51% of lyrics of the submitted entries had to be in one of the official languages of Serbia. At the closing of the deadline, a record 235 entries had been submitted. These were assessed by a dedicated committee at a listening round on 11 December 2023. 28 entries were then selected, and were announced on 21 December. They were released on 25 January 2024.

Selected entrants included Konstrakta, winner of Pesma za Evroviziju '22, who and previously competed in Beovizija 2008 and 2009 as a part of the group Zemlja gruva!, and Bojana Radovanović, who represented Serbia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2018. Besides Konstrakta, returnees to the Serbian national final include Filarri, Filip Baloš and Nadia, who competed the previous year; Zorja, who competed in 2022; Zejna, who competed in both editions; Milan Bujaković, who competed the previous year and in Beovizija 2020; Ivana Vladović, who competed in the 2022 edition and Beovizija 2019; and Yanx, who competed at Beovizija 2009, Beosong 2013, Beovizija 2018 and 2019.

Semi-finals
The jury in the semi-finals consisted of: Vladimir Jovanović (representative of OGAE Serbia and editor of the Eurovision portal), Željko Vasić(singer, composer and songwriter), Miloš Mihajlović(pianist and piano professor at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade), Miloš Roganović(composer and songwriter) and the jury president Goca Tržan(singer).

Semi-final 1
The first semi-final was held on 27 February 2024 at 21:00 CET, with the running order revealed on 24 January 2024. "Gnezdo orlovo" performed by Breskvica won the first semi-final with 24 points, winning both the jury and the public vote; other acts that qualified were Zorja, Bojana x David, Hristina, Lena Kovačević, Keni nije mrtav, M.IRA and Marko Mandić.

In addition to the competing entries, Nevena Božović opened the show with a performance of Loreen's Eurovision 2023 winning song "Tattoo", while an ABBA medley featured as the interval act with performances by Gift (band), Dragana Radaković, the Orthodox Celts, Dejan Petrović (trumpet player) with Dragačevske vezilje, Ivana Peters, Zoe Kida, Ksenija Knežević, Julijana Vincan, Igor Simić (singer), Mladen Lukić and Miloš Marković.

Semi-final 2
The second semi-final was held on 29 February 2024 at 21:00 CET, with the running order revealed on 24 January 2024. "Ramonda" performed by Teya Dora won the second semi-final with 24 points, winning both the jury and the public vote; other acts that qualified were Konstrakta, Zejna, Džordži, Iva Lorens, Nemanja Radošević, Dušan Kurtić and Milan Bujaković.

In addition to the competing entries, Luke Black opened the show with a performance of his winning song from Pesma za Evroviziju '23 "Samo mi se spava". The interval section featured Black performing his songs "God's Too Cool" and "Chainsaws in Paradise", Sanja Vučić performing "Cha Cha Cha", Hurricane performing "Fuego" and Princ (Serbian singer) performing "Soldi".

Final
The final was held on 2 March 2024 at 21:00 CET.

The winner, "Ramonda" performed by Teya Dora, was decided by a combination of votes from a jury panel consisting of Zoran Živanović Žika, Ivana Rašić (Sajsi MC), Dejan Petrović, Aleksandar Sedlar and the jury president Marija Šerifović, the last of whom won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 for Serbia, and the Serbian public via televoting. All funds collected from the viewer votes were donated to the Zvončica foundation to help children with malignant and rare diseases. In addition to the competing entries, Željko Joksimović opened the show with a performance of "Lane moje" and additionally performed some of the songs he wrote; "Lejla" by Hari Mata Hari, "Adio" by Knez, and his song "Nije ljubav stvar", as an interval act.

OGAE Serbia
The OGAE Serbia Award for the Best Song in Pesma za Evroviziju ′24 was voted on by the association members. The award was won by the song "Novo, bolje" by Konstrakta, which was thus designated as the Serbian entry to the OGAE Second Chance Contest 2024.

Broadcasts and ratings
The three shows were aired on RTS1, RTS Svet and RTS Planeta, as well as being streamed online via the broadcaster's website rts.rs and its official YouTube channel. The final was also aired on Radio Beograd 1. Plans to broadcast the final of the contest on the official Eurovision Song Contest YouTube channel were dropped, presumably following technical difficulties related to the broadcaster's YouTube streams of the semi-final shows; the first semi-final stream started with a delay of a few minutes, whilst the second semi-final stream started after the first four songs.

Controversy
Following the contest, some members of the public were dissatisfied with the result, namely "Gnezdo orlovo" by Breskvica not winning the contest despite finishing first in the televoting. An online petition was started to demand a re-cast of the vote, also demanding that the public vote only decide the winner.

Additionally, during the broadcast of the final of the contest, it was revealed that jury member Sajsi MC had awarded zero points to "Gnezdo orlovo", causing backlash amongst some members of the public, as well as in some media, while earning praise from others. Marija Šerifović and Zoran Živanović Žika – also members of the jury – also received threats. All three of the mentioned jurors preferred the song "Ramonda" to "Gnezdo orlovo". Some accused RTS and Sajsi MC of conspiring to put her on the jury for the purpose of giving Breskvica no points, with the juror allegedly receiving threats of violence and death threats. Dragan Brajović Braja expressed his dissatisfaction by commenting that "mediocrity, an LGBT icon, a child of Other Serbia and musical irrelevance decided the outcome". Pesma za Evroviziju supervisor Olivera Kovačević stated that the voting was regular and the results of the contest could not be changed.

A rally was scheduled for 9 March in front of the RTS headquarters in support of Breskvica, with an announcement of further protests and blockades of Belgrade's road arteries, such as Slavija Square and Gazela Bridge, if the result was not overturned and Breskvica was declared the winner. Breskvica supported people's right to protest. Few people were ultimately reported to have shown up.