RTP has already picked five producers for the line-up of Festival da Canção, Portugal's Eurovision Song Contest selection procedure. Earlier this week, esctoday.com exclusively revealed that the show would go ahead after fears that it would be cancelled due to changes within the organisation. Five names are old-school and and one is a new comer.

The show is provisionally scheduled for March 9th, no venue has been chosen. The final draft of the songs has to be presentedby 22nd February. The producers are challengedwith picking new talented singerswith enough experience to assure a good performance. Possible singers may come from the most recent edition of Operação Triunfo.

The line-up of song producers and writers is, so far, as follows:

• Carlos Coelho is a 26 year-old songwriter who has already achieved two placings in the Lithuanian finals in 2004 and 2005.In 2004, he was invited by the Latvian group Fomins and Kleins to write the Portuguese of their Eurovision entry Dziesma par laimi. Since then he started working with artists from all over Europe.
• Fernando Martins composed the song Ai de quem nunca cantou which came third last year. He was also the responsible for the arrangements of the tracks that Sonia Araujo and Ricardo danced to at the Eurovision Dance Contest 2007.
• Jan Van Dyke was behind the song Sempre (há sempre alguém) sung by Nucha in 1990.
• Nuno Feist was the composer of the song Além do sonho that came third in last year's Portuguese final. He and his brother had a succssesfulduet back in the eigthies and were at Festival da Canção 1985.
• Ramon Galarza's connection with Eurovision started many years ago as a backing singer in 1980 for Jose Cid with Um grande, grande amor. He composed and wrote several songs for Festival da Canção in the 1990's and came last in 2007.

Five names are already known and five more will be announced in the coming days.