Vanja Vardjan, who replaced Mi�a Molk, the former chief editor of the Entertaining and Sport department of RTV SLO, has revealed the plans for the Slovenian national preselection EMA 2005 in an interview with the magazine Mladina.

After some experiments in the past years, EMA 2005 is now returning to its original format. Because of low ratings for the four semi finals this year, the Slovenian national broadcaster now decided that EMA 2005 will take place in only one evening.

Slovenia won't quit participating at the Eurovision Song Contest…

About rumours that Slovenia has lost interest in taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest, Vanja Vardjan said: “EMA has to take place, because it is an important contest in which many artists like to take part. Even though some people would disagree, I think that it is very important for such a small country to take part in the European cup of popular music.”

Furthermore Vardjan also thinks that some people try to make artificial scandals every year when news about extremely high production costs are made public. “The costs of EMA are still on an acceptable level. Even though EMA 2005 will be a very expensive and big show, we will try to save some money in EMA 2006. But I still believe that it is better to have one big spectacular show instead of four smaller ones that nobody likes to watch!”

The end of the professional jury, 100% televoting…

The new format of EMA 2005 will feature some changes in the voting procedure. In the past viewers have been very unsatisfied with the work of the professional jury. In 2005 the decision will only be in the hands of the viewers. The televoting will be organised in accordance with the six telephone regions in Slovenia and mobile phones.

�eljko Joksimovič as guest performer in EMA 2005…

At the moment, the public invitation for all artists to take part in the contest is still being prepared and plans concerning guest performances are being made. According to Vanja Vardjan, there is a high possibility that this year's representative from Serbia & Montenegro �eljko Joksimovič will be one of the guest stars on the stage of EMA 2005.