New year, new start for Lithuania’s Eurovision national selection! Tonight sees the first heat of the country’s selection, Eurovizija 2017, which sees the first set of participants perform for a place in the next stage of the competition.

How to watch

The first show kicks off from 20:00 CET (21:00 local time) via the following channels:

• LRT Televizija
• LRT Lituanica
• Live webcast via lrt.lt

Tonight’s show

In tonight’s show, hosted by new presenting duo Ieva Stasiulevičiūte and Gabriele Martirosianaite, we see the first 12 of the 51 participants perform their entries publicly for the very first time in a bid to qualify to the next stage of the selection.

This evening’s acts will have to earn the votes of not only the viewing public, but also that of the specialist jury consisting of opera singer Sigutė Stonytė, music reviewer Ramūnas Zilnys, musicologist Darius Užkuraitis and singer Neda Malūnavičiūtė. Both the jury and televoting points will be ranked in Eurovision style.

The top ranked acts which receive the highest amount of points will qualify to the next stage of the show, kicking off from the 4 February. It is currently unknown how many acts will qualify, however it is expected to be around half of tonight’s entries.

Show 1 participants

• Golden Monkeys – Septyni dievai
• Otreya – Last two weeks
• Augustė Vedrickaitė – It’s not over (Not to me)
• Edgaras Lubys – Could it be?
• Tadas Rimgaila & Samanta Tina – Tavo oda
• Sasha Song – Never felt like this before
• Rūta Andruškevičiūtė – The way to your heaven
• Benas Malakauskas – Rolling
• Audrius Petrauskas – Shine like gold
• Justin3 – Streets of Vilnius
• Dagna – Feel it
• Paula Valentaite – Let you go

Show 1 sees the return of Lithuania’s 2009 Eurovision representative, Sasha Song, who previously represented the nation in Moscow with his entry Love, finishing in 23rd position in the Grand Final.

Over the next month, each of the 51 participants will compete in the first 4 shows of Eurovizija 2017, with around half qualifying to the second stage of the competition.

In total, a maximum of 6 acts will compete in the Grand Final of the national selection on the 11 March, in which the winner will be determined via a 50/50 jury/public vote, also including the vote of an international jury.

Eurovizija 2017 dates

• 07/01: Show 1
• 14/01: Show 2
• 21/01: Show 3
• 28/01: Show 4
• 04/02: Show 5
• 11/02: Show 6
• 18/02: Show 7
• 25/02: Show 8
• 04/03: Show 9
• 11/03: Show 10 (Grand Final)