After certain confusion on the date when the Azerbaijani first ever national final will be held, it seems that February 2nd appears as the public broadcaster Ictimai TV's choice. Three acts from the five acts will compete to represent Azerbaijan in Eurovision 2008.

As esctoday.com reported one month ago, three from this is the list of five hopefuls that will fight to win the Azeri passport to Belgrade 2008:

• Elnur, winner of Sing your song contest.
• Aynur Iskenderova, participant of Azeri star contest.
• Erkin Osmanli, participant of Akademiya song contest.
• Aytaj Jafarova.
• Rock group Unformal.

Previous informations stated that the national final show was to be scheduled for the last week of December or the first of January. The Azeri public broadcaster ITV, has set their national selection programme for February 2nd.

The decision on who will represent the Caucasian country will be both in the hands of the public via televote and jury vote. It is also expected that several well-known names from the Eurovision scene will attend the show, such as Dima Bilan (Russia 2006), invited as juror, while Ruslana (Ukraine 2004), Marija Šerifović, (Serbia 2007) and Toto Cutugno (Italy 1990) are invited as performers.

Azeri composers still can take part in the national competition. Several known names in the Azeri show business have already submitted entries, like Faig Sujaddinov, Eldar Mansurov, Ilham Abdullayev, Tunzala Agayeva and Govhar Hasanzada.

UPDATE

ITV will air several preview shows about Eurovision and the country's national selection during January. The first programme will be broadcast on January 11th, where the five contestants will appear in Qaraj music show. It is scheduled to kick off at 0.15 h (local time), 21.15 h CET. ITV offers a permanent webcast in its web. You can follow the show here .