Finland Selection Procedures

Finland Selection Details

YLE the Finnish broadcaster decided about their national selection quite much like previous years, singers will be invited to take part in the selection with the assist of their record company.
Although the format stays somewhat the same there will be one change in the format in comparison to previous years which will manifests itself with the entire selection starting much earlier than previous years.

There will be 4 Semi finals before the final with the top 2 entries chosen by televoting in each semi qualifying for the final, while the songs getting to the 3rd and 4th place will have another chance in the 4th semi final which will take part in the very same evening of the final.

The Final will be hosted at the Leonardo Hall in Tampere on 31/01/09 and will be hosted by
Jaana Pelkonen & Mikko Peltonen

i have to say that it's very interesting to see the impact of the singers that didn't have any time to prepare for their second appearance (the 2nd chance winners) because the 2nd chance semi is right before the Final, unlike all the other participants who had time to rest and maybe rethink their act for the final's night.

For now only the participating singers are known:

Semi Final 1 (09.01.09)
1. Kwan
2. Tiara
3. Tapani Kansa
4. Riikka

Semi Final 2 (16.01.09)
1. Sani
2. Passionworks
3. Remu
4. Waldo's people

Semi Final 3 - 23.01.09
1. Signmark
2. Janita
3. Vink
4. Jari Sillanpaa

Out of all those artists there are quite some who already was there long time ago and not so long ago: Tapani has taken part already in as far as 1975 Finnish national final where he didn't reach the final, and part of that participation he also took part for no less than another 11 times!.
Also Janita participated in the Finnish national final many years ago in 1994.
Jari Sillanpaa managed to have a great song in 1998 but didn't manage to take out the ticket to the Eurovision unlike 2004 when he tried again with a outworn song and performance (if you ask me) and got in but failed to reach the Eurovision final.