Update: Low interest in Ukrainian selections

by roel 279 views

The interest in the Ukrainian national final is that low that national broadcaster NTU may need to change its selection format. NTU planned a competition with 100 songs but on the submission deadline (20th September) not even 100 songs had been submitted. NTU has now extended the submission deadline to 8th October.

From 1st August till 20th September, all Ukrainian citizens could send in their songs to the Ukrainian broadcaster NTU. A professional jury would select 100 of them to take part in a contest spread over several months. But… by 20th September, not even 100 songs had been submitted, according to unofficial sources. NTU, that planned to announce the 100 selected songs on Saturday 25th September, now seems to face a problem.

NTU stated officially that they have received over 100 applications but that they had to extend the submission deadline to 8th October because several of the submitted songs weren't good enough to be shown on television. They also said that they might change the number of participating songs from 100 to 75.

The Ukrainian selection initially would contain the introduction of the 100 songs on television, 5 songs per week, 20 weeks long. Televoting would point out the 20 finalists to compete in a final in the Sports Palace in Kiev on 27th February 2005.