Finnish broadcaster YLE has published the rules and dates of their selection process for 2009 which will decide who will represent Finland in next year's Eurovision Song Contest. As in previous years, the competition will invite selected artists and composers in co-operation with their record companies. The biggest change from last year is that the whole process starts much earlier. Songs will be made public on the 10th of December 2008 and even earlier on YLE's own channels.
There will be 12 artists competing in three semi-finals on the 9th, 16th and 23rd January.The head of YLE Entertainment, Ms Tuire Lindström is currently concentrateon the selection process for the competing artists. They will range from male and female solo singers to bands. The full artist line-up will be announced in September. Ms. Lindström also promises some surprises. "We are very happy with our Eurovision project this year with Teräsbetoni making it to the final in Belgrade, so we will use the same process to select out next entry", she concludes.
From every semi-final two artistsbe voted by the public to qualify directly to the final which will be held on the 31 January. Just like last year, there will be a second chance vote to start off the final between the 6 artists who did not make it directly to the final taking the number of participants in the final to 8. The final will again be in two parts and the winner will be decided by a televote and SMS-vote. There is also a mention of a compilation CD containing from all the entries planned for a January release.
The host city and the venue have not been announced. YLE TV entertainment and TVchannel 2 whobroascast the national selection shows and the Eurovision Song Contest in Finland reside in the city of Tampere. The semi-finals have in the past few years been transmitted "as live" from the Tohloppi TV centre studios in Tampere.
The executive producer for the Finnish national final this year will be Merete Manninen and the producer will be Matti Grönberg.
