A press conference was held today to reveal more news regarding the German national selection for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. As announced earlier, the national final will be a collaboration of public channel ARD and private channel Pro7.

The castings for the talent search will take place in Cologne over nine weekends starting on 18th September. Those who want to take part can submit their applications here. The programme is called Unser Star für Oslo (Our star for Oslo). Any genre of music is welcome. The eight TV shows will be broadcast in February and March: there will be five heats on Pro7, a quarter final will be broadcast on public channel ARD followed by a semi final on Pro7 and a grand final on ARD again.

Stefan Raab, who represented Germany three times as a composer and once as a singer, will choose the 20 participants that will take part in the eight shows. He will take advice from a team formed of members of ARD and the ARD radio channels. All decisions in the eight shows will be based on televoting only. In the final, two contestants will compete. Before the representative is chosen, the German song will be chosen by televoting.

In 2009, Germany was represented by Alex Swings, Oscar Sings! with the song Miss kiss kiss bang. The duo finished 20th in the final with 35 points.