At a press conference today in Madrid, Spanish broadcaster finally confirmed that they will use a new show, Misión Eurovisón (eurovision mission) to the select the 2007 Spanish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The songs and singers selected will be chosen indiviually at first, and in the grand final, each finalist will perform ALL five remaining songs. Esctoday.com can now reveal exclusively that there will be seven televised shows and the final of Misión Eurovisón is set to take place in the week of Saturday 24th February 2007.

This year, The Misión Eurovision show will include two selections: one for the song and another for the performer.Songwriters of anynationality can participate entries respecting the EBU rules. The songs can be sungby a perfomer in the show, although the final singer will be selected separately.

Nearly three weeks ago, esctoday.com exclusively revealed that Spain would be returning to a national selection to find their 2007 Eurovision Song Contest entry. Some of the rules were found and published last week on our partner-site, Oikotimes.com. We were asked by TVE to withhold this information because it could change before today's press conference. Much of the content has been confimed as correct, and you can read oikotimes's article at the end of this one, however there are some big changes.

As previously reported:

• Singers and Songs for Misión Eurovisón will be chosen separately.
• The final 5 songs will be chosen through a mixture of internal jury and online internet voting.
• Songs should be mid-uptempo, and contain some English lyrics(although this is not a specific rule)
• The singers will participate in a series of four weeklyqualifying rounds
• There will be a semi final (show 5) when five singers will be chosen for the final of Misión Eurovisón.

The full picture – Esctoday.com can now reveal several important pieces of information:

• The submission deadline for singers to enter is December 11th 2006.
• The submission deadline for songs to be entered is December 15th 2006.
• The weekly qualifying shows will start the week of Monday 8th January 2007.
• There will be aminimum of 20 singers participating in Misión Eurovisón.
• The number of participants progessing to the semi-final will be confirmed once the number of accepted participants is known. This is dependent on submissions received by TVE.
• There will be two shows to make up the final, the first will be to introduce the finalists, and no eliminations will be made.
• The five finalists will each perform all five songs.
• The final of Misión Eurovisón is set to take place in the week of Saturday 24th February 2007.
• The public will then select their favourite match of song and singer to represent Spain in Helskinki through a televote.

THE CHANGES FROM LAST WEEK
There are several key changes from last week explained by Federico Llano, head of the project. There will now be a total of seven shows, four semi-finals selecting up to 20 semifinalists,a semi final to select the final five singers, and two 'final'shows, where the singers will be introduced and will then each performall ofthe final five songs. The final,is set totake place in the week of Saturday 24th February 2007.

originally published by oikotimes.com last week
Spain will select their entry for the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in a special show called 'Misión Eurovisión', to be broadcast on TVE. The broadcaster has made some information avaliable for artists and composers, which states that:

The song should be mid to up-tempo, because ''no ballad has won in the last few years'' says the broadcaster. The song can be in Spanish, Catalan, Galician, or Basque, with parts or specific words sung in English allowed, because ''the winners in the last few years have all been sung in English'' say TVE.

The aim of the show is to ''select the best song and the best singers through 'Misión Eurovisión' which will be broadcast sometime in the first three months of 2007. Because of this, TVE will not allow singers tied to a specific song, nor songs written espececially for certain singers. Therefore there will be two separate selections: one for the singer, and one for the song.'' It might seem like the aim of the show is simple, but the logistics behind it are not!

All of the songs selected in a preselection by TVE will be put on the internet for public hearing, and it will be the internet voters who will determine some of those that will go through. The songs will appear on TVE's dedicated Eurovision pages, and the public may vote online from the 15th-21st January 2007. You may vote for as many songs as you like, but will be limited to voting for only one song per day. After the internet vote, 10 songs will be chosen for the national final- the five with the most votes on the internet polls, and five others chosen by those organising the event.

From January 24 until Janaury 28 of 2007, internet voters will be able to vote on the aforementioned ten entries. From these, five will proceed to the live national final; the three most voted for on the internet qualify, and the two other places will be decided by internal organisers. Established artists will then perform these songs for the general public in a live show to be held in Madrid. After hearing the songs in full, the five artists hoping to sing for Spain in Helsinki will perfom parts of each song for the public to then chose which and who will go to Eurovision.

The selecting of the singers is also just as complex. In four galas, singers will perform songs of their chosing (preferably songs that are know), which can be in any language, live. Howeve rthey'll only sing about a minute and a half of it. In each gala, the public will select three singers to qualify to the semi-final via televoting, with the organisers of the show selecting another two. In the semi-final, five artists will go through to the final; three chosen by the public, and two by the organisers of the show. There will then be a show before the national final where we can get to know the singers more, before the actual national final itself. TVE stresses that in the national final, the singer and the song will both be chosen by 100% televoting.