The Croatian news paper Večernji list wrote that there will be twelve participating songs in each of the two semi finals of the national selection Dora 2003. From each semi final, six songs will proceed to the final night.

As written before on this site, the Croatian broadcaster HRT decided to follow the idea of Sweden and The Netherlands by organizing semi finals in Dora 2003. Although limited to two semi finals, with twelve songs in each of them, the amount of entries in each semi final will be higher than in the Swedish-Dutch prototype. In other words, the selection committee of HRT will select 24 entries, of which twelve will reach the big final.

The Editor of Entertainment and Sport Programs of HRT, Damir Matković, told the news paper that “the decition is motivaded by the wish that this musical competition would be better marketly exploited”.

Although it's most likely that the Croatian capital Zagreb will host the national final like previous years, the possibilty of letting the tourist cities Dubrovnik and/or Opatija organize at least one of the semi finals, has not yet been excluded.

Dora 2003 will be organized three nights in a row, with the two semi finals taking place March 7th and 8th, and the final night on March 9th.