The duo Platin is the big winner of EMA 04 and thus Slovenia's hope at the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest with the song Stay forever. Despite the amount of fan support and several articles and interviews in Slovenian mass media, Natalija Verboten, the big favourite, was snubbed by the jury.
Ro�marinke with Kli�e and Alya with Fluid came second and third in the second, final televoting which determined the winner. Along with the winner they received top amount of points from the combined vote of a Slovenian-international jury and TV viewers televoting, and had the right to perform again. Of all the 16 finalists Ro�marinke were the the jury's favourite and Natalija Verobten the TV viewers'. Platin came second both with the jury and the viewers.
The list of performers in the final as well as those from the 4 preselection round can be found at the Slovenian country page. esctoday.com will bring you the the full results of EMA 04- Izbor in the following days.
Previous Slovenian national final winners sung a medley of their Eurovision Song Contest during the first televoting. Tanja Ribič (1997), Vili Resnik (1998) and Darja �vajger(1999) were then awarded the EMA sculpture which they haven't received at the time of their victory. EMA became the name for the Slovene national final in 1997 and the sculpture as the prize for the performer of the winning song was introduced in 2001 when Nu�a Derenda won. The host of the show and the head of RTVSLO's entertainment programme, Mi�a Molk, said that they felt it was the right thing to do.
During the second televoting, Karmen Stavec performed a rock remix of Lep poletni dan (last year's Slovenian entry at the Eurovision Song Contest), which was awarded the title of most played Slovenian song on Slovenian radios in 2003 at the Slovenian Radio Festival a few weeks ago.
Platin will perform Stay forever in the qualifier round of this year's Eurovision Song Contest on 12 May in Istanbul. The goal is, of course, to perform at the grand final few days later.
