More than 500 songs were submitted to the open competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, organized by Finnish broadcaster YLE. A new record in Finland! On 1st November YLE will announce the 24 songs: 16 selected out of the open competition and 8 specially invited entries. On 1st December the names of the performers will be announced.

The open call for songs to be submitted to the Finnish selection proved to be more successful than ever before. A total number of 503 songs were submitted by the deadline (1st October 2004).

In addition the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE has invited eight composers to submit songs directly to the competition. Hence the Finnish entry for the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest will be chosen from among 511 songs, which is a new record in Finland. The previous record of 476 songs was set in 2002.

The 2005 national selection procedure will now begin with the short-listing of a total of 16 songs from entries submitted to the open competition. This will be done by a jury assembled and appointed by YLE during the next few weeks.

YLE will announce the song titles and the names of song writers of 16 short listed songs and 8 specially invited entries on 1st November and the names of the performers on 1st December 2004.

Furthermore YLE informed us that the 2005 Finnish selection will be hosted by Heikki Paasonen and Jaana Pelkonen. Heikki and Jaana both are experienced tv-personalities and presenters of different kind of shows in Finland.