A total of 177 songs were submitted to STV, the Slovakian broadcaster for the country's return in the Eurovision Song Contest. Three semi finals were originally scheduled but now the number has increased to five, with a total of 50 acts taking part.

The high interest shown by local artists in Slovakia's preselection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest has led STV to alter their original plans for three semi finals, increasing them to five. Ten acts will fight it out in each semi and three will qualify to the final, two of them by televote and one by the jury. So the final will see a total of fifteen contestants. STV promise that the final list of contestants as well as the jury members will be announced sometime this week.

The five semi finals will be held on the following dates: Sunday 15th February, Friday 20th February, Sunday 22nd February, Friday 27th February and Sunday 1st March.

Another piece of information regarding the Slovakian preselection comes from Serbia and the official website of OGAE Serbia. It is reported that Vladimir Graic, the composer of the 2007 winner, Molitva performed by Marija Serifovic, was invited to submit a song in the Slovakian preselection. The song, Daj mi len den, will be performed by the girl band Golden Storm and according to a statement by Mr Graic in novosti.rs it is uptempo and totally different to Molitva. As the rules set by STV stated though that the selection would be open to Slovakian citizens only we will have more on this story soon.

Very special thanks to Miloš Hozda for the report.