The announcement of the 12 finalists that will bid to follow Lordi as Finland's representative is highly anticipated. YLE has sworn all artists involved with the final 12 acts to secrecy, so don't expect any news to be confirmed until the press conference next month. We saw in neighbouring country, Sweden, last week that artists can be disqualified from the selection procedures for making public statements that can influence the selection process.

Escfinland.eu suggest that YLE will avoid the fans believe that there should be a large rock contingency in the final after Lordi's win in Athens, and will seek to provide a wide cross section of Finnish popular music.

The selection format for 2007 will remain the same as last year's. There will be four semi-finals, in which three artists will peform two songs each. The public will select each act's best song by televoting. This will leave all 12 acts with one song in the final. The final will take place on February 17th 2007.

Speculation in the poll run on popular Finnish forum, ww.viisukuppila.fi, has centred around PMMP,Hanna Pakarinen, Anna Eriksson ,Antti Tuisku, Sunrise Avenue,Annika Eklund, Apocalyptica,Don Johnson Big Band, HIM, Indica 17 , Tarja Turunen, Tiktak, Agnes, Arja Saijonmaa, Dallas Superstars, Paula Koivuniemi, Rasmus, Firevision, Lauri Tähkä & Elonkerjuu, Olavi Uusivirta.

Of course since Lordi won the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest with Hard Rock Hallelujah, Finland is automatically qualfied for the final of the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.