Finland starts earlier the selection process for 2009

escfinland.eu reports:

Finnish broadcaster YLE has published the rules and dates of their selection process for 2009. The competition is again going to be between invited artists and songs selected in co-operation with their record companies. The biggest change from last year is that the whole process starts much earlier and the songs can be made public already on the 10th of December 2008, and even earlier on YLE's own channels.

There will be 12 artists competing in three semi-finals on the 9th, 16th and 23rd January. Already now the head of YLE Entertainment, Ms Tuire Lindström is making a point that they will concentrate extra hard on the selection process of the competing artists, who will range from male and female solo singers to bands. The full artist line-up will be announced already in September. Ms. Lindström also promises some surprises. "We are very happy with our Eurovision project this year with Teräsbetoni making it to the final in Belgrade, so we will use the same process to select out next entry", she concludes.

From every semi-final two artists get voted straight to the final, which will be broadcast on the 31 January. Just like last year, there will be a second chance vote to start off the final between the 6 artists who did not make it directly to the final taking the number of participants in the final to 8. The final will be again in two parts and the winner will be decided by a tele- and SMS-vote. There is also a mention of a compilation CD of all the entries planned for a January release.

The host city and the venue have not been announced yet. YLE TV entertainment and TV channel 2 hosting all the Eurovision shows reside in the city of Tampere, and the semi-finals have in the past few years been transmitted "as live" from the Tohloppi TV centre studios there. Also the hosts will be announced later. Jaana Pelkonen, YLE's host for Eurovision shows since 2005 and one of the hosts of the 2007 Helsinki final has previously been reported to be looking for a career in politics after finishing her university studies earlier this year and might thus not be available to host Eurovision shows anymore.

source