Finland plans first home entry

by Richard West-Soley 88 views

Finnish broadcaster YLE will make no major changes to its selection process for 2007, following the winning formula of the 2006 selection which resulted in a first-time win for Finland in Athens this year.

Again, YLE will work together with Finnish record companies to invite artists and select songs for them to perform. The list of performers will be made public in November this year, and the final itself will take place on 17th February 2007, after four semifinals on the Saturdays leading up to that date. A compilation CD of all the competing songs should be in the shops by 10th February.

Serious interest
YLE's Head of Entertainment Ilkka Talasranta pointed towards Lordi's victory for Finland as a great inspiration to other Finnish artists to take part, and stated that many have already expressed a serious interest with the broadcaster. Not only was the winning song a great international success, but the national selection spawned a series of pop hits for the domestic market too. With automatic qualification for next year's final, the chance to represent Finland at home is surely one not to be missed by artists of all genres.

The rules for the contest are published on YLE's Eurovision webpage in both Finnish and Swedish.

What are your ideas for a very first Finnish home entry? Who would you like to see represent Finland on home ground? Share your ideas below!

Richard West-Soley

Senior Editor

Richard's ESC history began way back in 1992, when he discovered the contest could fuel his passion for music and languages. Since then, it's been there at every corner for him in some way or another. He joined the esctoday.com team back in 2006, and quickly developed a love for writing about the contest. In his other life, he heads the development team at the learning resources company Linguascope, and writes about all aspects of language learning on the site Polyglossic.com.