Many broadcasters around Europe have issued their call for songs for the Eurovision Song Contest to be staged at Moscow in May 2009. RTE, the Irish broadcaster will soon follow suit.

esctoday.com has learned that an announcement is duearound the end of the month on the selection details, with a National Final to be held, provisionally set for Friday 20th February 2009.

Due to the current financial crisis, the Irish broadcaster is experiencing a shortage of funding for large scale television projects. This means that the National Final in 2009 won't be aswell budgettedas the Eurosong 2008 national selection show held in Limericklast February.

esctoday.com believesthis years show will be similar to that of the National Final held in 2006 & 2007 on RTÉ's most popular television light-entertainment programme,The Late Late Show.

Back then,a representative(s) for Ireland would be internally chosen by RTÉ around November, a call for songs would be made for that representative(s), the following February on The Late Late Show the representative(s)would sing 3 songs and the public would vote on which song would be sung at the Eurovision Song Contest by the representative.

Brian Kennedy and Dervish were the representatives at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 and 2007 of whom sang Every Song is A Cry for Love and They Can't Stop the Spring respectively.

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• Replay: Watch Eurosong 2008, the Irish National Final held last February here.