As expected, many of the applicants are newcomers, however there are also some big names, such as the 2004 runner-up Jacques Houdek and the 2006 third placed Tina Vukov, as well as Sasa Loncar and Helena Bastaic, who are well-known in Croatia. Sasa took part in Dora in 2005 as part of the boy-band Sasa, Tin and Kedzo.

This morning Croatian national broadcaster HRT in Zagreb confirmed that auditions will start on Thursday. After all the applicants have performed, an expert jury will choose 24 acts to go to the further competition, as well as two reserves.

As already reported by esctoday.com, Dora 2011 will consist of seven programmes on which contestants will perform live. In the first and second programmes 12 acts will compete, and six of them will be eliminated. In the third programme, the twelve acts who got the most votes in the first two programmes will compete, and six will be eliminated.In the fourth programme, 6 acts will compete, andtwo will be eliminated. In each of the fifth and sixth programmesone act will beeliminated.

The results of the first six programmes will be decided by televoting alone. The competition starts on 22nd January, with the big final on 5th March.

In the final, two acts will compete, and will sing three songs decided by HRT by famous Croatian songwriters. The result will be decided by a 50/50 jury and televote.

Croatia was represented at this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo by Feminnem with their song Lako je sve, however they failed to reach the final.