The Albanian broadcaster, RTSH has announced the details of 49th edition of Festivali i Kenges 2010. This year 28 songs will be selected by the professional jury to compete in the two semi finals with no division between newcomers and established singers. Bojken Lako, the popular Albanian singer and songwriter is the new producer of this event.

Unlikeprevious years, RTSH decided to start this year earlier with the preparations of the Albanian national final, Festivali i Këngës 49 (FiK) introducing changes in the format as well as the voting system.

RTSH, the Albanian broadcaster, has published the details for the upcoming Festivali i Këngës. As usually, Festivali i Këngës will take place around Christmas time. The semi-finals will be held on December 23rd and 24th and the grand final will be the 25th of December. There is still a possibility to add the duet night on December 25th. In that case the grand final will be replaced on Sunday, December 26th. There is no newcomers category this year.

Whereas in the past there used to be an established singers' night and a newcomer singers' one, this year a professional jury will select 28 from the total of songs submitted to the broadcaster's open call. In each semi final, 14 songs will compete and from each semi final 5 songs will be eliminated and only 18 songs will enter the grand final.

Also the voting system will be different this year. In the grand final, the songs will be judged by two juries, the central jury and the alternative jury with the representatives of local Radio Televisions.

Edmond Zhulali, the artistic director of Festivali i Këngës 49, stated to the local newspaper shekulli: unlike last year, we have chosen this year for a system with two semi finals because it’s more attractive for the viewers and this system enhances the emotions of the participants. "Last year, we had an interesting program, but lacked emotions. The same songs were performed on the first, second and the third night." said Mr Zhulali.

The producer of this edition is the experienced singer and songwriter Bojken Lako. As customary, the singers will sing live. Because of some technical problems the orchestra won’t be fully live though. The basic music will be playback.

RTSH is going to a publish this year two Festivali i Këngës 49 magazines with information’s of the participants, lyrics, composers. The first one will be published in Albanian before Festivali i Këngës. The second magazine will be published in Albanian and in English after the Albanian entry is decided and this magazine will be used as a promotion of the Albanian representative for the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.

Stay tuned with Esctoday for more news around the Festivali i Këngës 49.