Today at the meeting of the EBU reference group in Riga it was decided that the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 will take place in Riga, its producer will be Arvids Babris. That was told to the press by Juhan Paadam, the Executie producer of the Eurovision Song Contest 2002.

He also told that new rules will be used. That means the juries will be lost and only televoting will take place.

25 countries will participate. The list will be published as soon as possible. There are some negotiations with the participating countries at the moment.

The show will be hosted by Skonto hall or the Kipsala Exhebition hall.

Soon a contest for the logo of the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 will be started.

It was also decided that there will be three commercial brakes during the show. Until now there were 2.

Paadam also told that probably Reinars Kaupers and Marie N won't host the show.

He concluded that the reference group said that the Eurovision 2002 in Estonia was a success and that's why the Latvians want to get some of the organisers from last year to their team.