The singer that will bring Azerbaijan to the Eurovision Song Contest stage for the first time ever will be selected at the end of this month, as revealed by Mrs Leyla Aliyeva, editor of the Department for Musical and Entertaining Programmes of Ictimai TV.

The first ever Azerbaijani contestant will be chosen from this group of five hopefuls:

• Elnur, winner of Sing your song contest.
• Aynur Iskenderova, participant of Azeri star contest.
• Erkin Osmanli, participant of Akademiya song contest.
• Aytaj Jafarova.
• Rock group Unformal.

It seems that Ictimai TV has introduced several changes in this list, since previously there were notfive butsix candidates and some names have come in and others have come out. Elnur and Aytaj Jafarova remain in the list, while Emil Aliyev, Sabina Babayeva, Fuad Musayev and Jabrayil do not appear anymore.

The selection process to choose one of these singers has not been decided yet, but it is likely that Ictimai TV would lay the decision in the people's hands by SMS or phone calls. Nevertheless, the Azeri public broadcaster will take into account the opinion of the jury before any decision is taken.