NTU has just announced the names of the 20 participants who will fight for a ticket to Oslo in a national final on Saturday.

The names are:

01. Vasyl Lazarovych
02. Vitaliy Kozlovskiy
03. Miya
04. Group “Dazzle Dreams”
05. Oleksiy Matias
06. Natalia Valevska
07. El Kravchuk
08. Mira Gold
09. Duet “Stereo”
10. Yuliya Voys
11. Zlata Ognevich
12. Maks Barskih
13. Alyosha
14. Masha Subko
15. Ivan Berehzovskiy
16. Vladislav Levicki
17. Group “Zaklyopki”
18. Irina Rosenfeld
19. SH & BB
20. Shanis

Seventeen year old Safura Alizadeh will be singing “Drip Drop” as the Azerbaijani entry in Oslo. And guess what? It’s a ballad… I honestly expected better from Azerbaijan.

37 down 2 to go.

It’s just been confirmed that the selection process will take place again starting tomorrow. So if you’re in Ukraine tomorrow and have a CD, passport and can sing somewhat you can take part in the selection process, then the semis on Friday and the Final on Saturday. Vasyl Lazarovich has confirmed that he will take part again in the selection process.

It will be interesting to say the least.

Today in Ukraine, NTU, the ukrainian state broadcaster announced a new national final to be held for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

An emergency press conference was called today at 16:00 CET in Ukraine to announce the plans for the forth coming national selection format. NTU are under a tight deadline as they must be able to formally present their representative and song to the Eurovision Song Contest – Heads of Delegation meeting in Oslo, on Sunday.

A new president of the state controlled broadcasted NTU today, was appointed by the new government of Ukraine. Song artists in Ukraine recently complained over that the current Ukrainian representative for Eurovision 2010, Vasyl Lazarovich, was selected internally and this was an unfair competition to anyone who wished to participate in the running to represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The new format will comprise of two qualifying rounds to be held tomorrow March 18th and 19th with a televised National Final to be broadcast live on NTU on Saturday March 20th.

In connection with the lack of funding to the National Television Company of Ukraine to host the qualifying round, the organizers appealed to the leadership of the new channel and studio Savik Shuster “for help in organizing the qualifying round.”

The first stage of the qualifying round will be held tomorrow March 18th at 09:00 CET in the “Savik Shuster studios” In the first stage, will be open to all wishing to participate, subject to the requirements of the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, ie. song mustn’t be publically broadcast before October 1st, 2009 etc.In the first phase 20 finalists will be selected. It is unclear whether international particpants may enter the competition.

The results of the first phase will be announced on Friday at 22:00 CET in the broadcast program “Shuster Live.” SMS-voting for finalists of the first qualifying round stage will then begin. The second round of qualification will see the songs being broadcast across various broadcasters in Ukraine.

On Saturday evening during a gala concert which will be broadcast live on Ukrainian television NTU, a national final will be held which will determine the winner.

In turn, Minister of Culture of Ukraine, Mikhail Kulinyak reported that the singer Vasily Lazarevic agreed to participate in the new selection round.

In addition, the winner will be declared by a televote. More than 50 people have declared their intention to participate in the qualifying round.

Vasyl Lazarovich was already selected to be the representative for Ukraine, internally by NTU earlier this year with the song “I love you”.

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This is actually growing on me a lot, and we know she can sing live.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that Satellite is a record-breaking hit in Germany selling faster than any other song. The single is currently still the most sold one; along with the song Love me it has sold as many in total as the other nine songs in the top ten combined. Satellite also is on top of the download charts in Austria and Switzerland at the moment, where she is the first German singer to have three songs in the download Top 100 at a time.

Top of the morning to you Eurovision fans! Here at ESC Ireland we are celebrating our national holiday with a hangover in according with ancient Irish tradition. On this day of Patrick, it’s only right and proper to reflect on great Irish entries of years past. And don’t worry, we’ll spare you Riverdance.

When asked to name the greatest Irish entry of all time, you might be expecting Dana’s All Kinds of Everything or Eimear Quinn’s The Voice to feature.

No.

Here at ESC Ireland, we have unanimously agreed that Ireland’s Greatest Ever Entry and therefore our St. Patrick’s Day Hit of the Day is something very different indeed.

Sheeba’s Horoscopes is beyond fabulous. Here are just some of the reasons we love it so…

• The opening lone fiddle is wonderfully Irish and brings a tear to our eye on this March 17th.
• We squee with joy as Frances, Maxi and Marion dramatically turn to face the camera and deliver an opening line each – No Nicole Scherzingers here!
• The amazing dresses that look like something kids in 1981 put together after watching Doctor Who
• “It’s crazy, crazy!”
• The nonstop hiNRG swaying on the spot dancing!
• Marion’s hair and Croydon facelift – she’s ringmistress in a circus you know!
• The BACKWARDS strutting! Not as easy as it looks after a few shandies…
• Noel Kelehan’s hands bopping up and down for the dum-dum-dum-dum-dum bit… bring back orchestras we say…
• Frances rolling her eyes at 1:30 and Marin following it with the sexy scowl. Show us your teeth Sheeba!
• Frances’ demented grin at 1:55 – it’s like she’s been to a head shop!
• “They are celestial, we are terrestrial, let’s keep pour feet on the ground.” If Ireland ever has an answer to Melodifestivalen and Sheeba are the interval act some year this is the point where they will fly over 12,000 gayers in the O2 on wires. how fabulous!
• The shoes!
• The big finale with the dramatic hand movements and the roar of the home crowd.

Somehow it only managed 4th on the night. It’s obviously miles better than Making Your Mind Up and we suspect it was fixed as RTÉ simply could not have afforded the 1982 contest. And that’s the excuse we’ll use if Niamh is overlooked in Oslo!

Well Albania has gone and done it again, they revamped their song into something impressive, it’s not going to win but it is very good and should be a definite qualifier for the final methinks.

The entry, originally entitled Nuk mundem pa ty (now It’s all about you), will be performed in English on the night. Juliana Pasha is sporting a new look too, a bit more wild to go with all the fiddling going on.

Birgitta Haukdal entered the 2003 Eurovision for Iceland with ‘Open your heart’.  She placed 9^th overall.  The same year she was voted Pop Star and Performer of the year in Iceland.  She has attempted to return to the Eurovision on two other occasions, 2006 and 2008 taking part in the Icelandic National finals however her songs didn’t win.  We hope to eventually see the lovely Birgitta back on the Eurovision stage.

Lara Fabian teamed up with her one time boyfriend Patrick Fiori on the anti-homophobia song about tolerance entitled ‘La Difference’.

Lara represented Luxemburg in 1988 coming fourth.

Patrick represented France in 1993 also coming fourth.

This was one of several live duets the couple performed together.  Weren’t they a beautiful couple!

Mike Stock, co-composer of the United Kingdom’s 2010 entry has announced that the song will be remixed and a new version released in the near future.

After much criticism by the public of the quality of the Pete Waterman and Mike Stock composed song, Mike Stock has announced on his website that the song will be remixed and a new, better version released soon.

In a reaction to the criticism and comments received about the song That Sounds Good To Me, Stock said, “what I found most frustrating was having to record six different versions of That Sounds Good To Me incomplete and unfinished. Obviously until you know who has won you can’t deliver the final version. This is what has made this year slightly unusual”

This appeared to be a criticism of the BBC’s national selection format where each of the six acts rehearsed to perform their own version of the song with only three being presented on the night.

He then went on to say that he is busy preparing a new and final version of the song, which he expects to pleasantly surprise people.

Your country needs you, the show in which Josh Dubovie was selected to represent the United Kingdom in Oslo, was viewed by 2.9 million people, which is 4 million less than the 6.9 million viewers that the 2009 edition of Your country needs you achieved.

On the subject of whether or not the United Kingdom can take home victory in Oslo on the 29th of May, Stock said, “I don’t ask myself the question ‘can we win Eurovision?’, I just want only to do a great job and, believe me, it isn’t easy because so many things are out of your control. But anything is possible to do”.

HURRAH!!!!!!!!! Bye bye boring ballad!

The head of Ukrainian broadcaster NTU has resigned and along with him many other heads. This means a whole new competition in the Ukraine as that sham of a song is now gone. They are rushing for a new final this weekend.

So now we go from bad crappy boring Ukraine

To Happy bouncy brilliant Ukraine

Ukraine has just started the organization of the new national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. This is what Anna German, the chairman of President’s Administration has stated. She also claims that the decision about its holding will be made as soon as the new director of the National Channel of Ukraine will be appointed.

“I believe that holding the National Selection is quite possible though it is very few time left, – says German. We will do our best to make it work. We are looking forward to a fair and frank
person to come and lead the National Channel. I hope that he will be a famous journalist who cares about the Channel’s business but not his own chance to earn money in some crytical cases”.

Also Anna German stated that Lazarovych will be offered to take part in national final, and that finalists from “Fabryka Zyrok” show will take part in national selection as well.

Source ESCdaily