Heikki Seppälä, the Executive Producer for the Eurovision Song Contest, welcomed journalists to the press center and Helsinki in the first press conference of hte year, which continued after Jaana and Mikko went to rehearse on stage. Heikki introduced Svante Stockselius, and Svante welcomed journalists to what is perhaps the biggest television music program in the world. After the press conference, Svante spoke exclusively on camera with esctoday.com.

Svante told thefirst members of thepress that arrivedat thecentrethat the Eurovision Song Contest is a tough act to produce since the entire production must be done in less then a year. The producers for the other largest live television events such as the Olympic broadcasts and the World Cup in football have years to prepare, while the producing team in a country like Finland can only begin preparations after the winner is announced on the night of the Song Contest final. Svante complemented the entire production team assembled on stage on the organization.

Kjell Ekholm the Event Manager and also Deputy Executive Producer, Pirjo Talvio the Press Manager and many other members of the production team also spoke.

After the press conference Barry Viniker from esctoday.com spoke to Svante. With so many rumours and counter rumours regarding certain issues important to fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, Barry asked Svante whether the two semi final idea is still on the table or if it has been dropped, and whether it's true that a Palestinian broadcaster has now applied for membership of the EBU with a view to joining the Eurovision Song Contest!

UPDATE Watch the Svante Stockselius video interview here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHGJ123agmI