Slovenia has confirmed that it will hold its Eurovision Song Contest selection show, EMA 2009, on Sunday 1st February. Eight songs will qualify for the show after coming through a semi final containing 14 songs. A total of 113 songs were submitted to the selection process.

As reported by esctoday.com two months ago, Slovenian national broadcaster, RTVSLO, are making some changes to the selection process for 2009 in order to improve quality and give the country its strongest chance yet of capturing the Eurovision Song Contest crown.

There will only be one semi final in 2009, instead of two as in recent years. There will also be only one round of voting in the final, instead of a superfinal as in recent years. EMA traditionally takes place over a weekend, and this year, the semi final will take place on Saturday 31st January, one day before the final.

In 2007, Alenka Gotar finished in second place in the first voting round only to beat first round leader,Eva Cerne by a landslide. Last year, in one of the closest ever public votes, Rebeka Dremelj defeated first round leader, Langa in Civili by just 395 votes.