Iceland warms up for Eurovision Song Contest

Iceland will choose its representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade on 23 February, after the show took a short break for Christmas.

Seven more shows will be aired leading up to the selection, beginning with a show reviewing all the events of this season. Viewers will be given a peek behind the scenes of the pre-selection process, and the special RUV (Icelandic National Broadcasting Service) committee will announce the three songs chosen for the wildcard episode.

This year’s pre-selection process will begin with a wildcard episode on January 12th, during which contestants will perform the three selected songs to compete for a place in the final round.

The following four Saturdays (19 January, 26 January, 2 February and 9 February) will have three songs performed each episode, with one ultimately being eliminated from the competition. After these elimination episodes, eight finalists will remain.

The finalists will present their entries in a warm-up episode on 16 February, in preparation for the grand finale. On 23 February, only one song will be chosen of the eight finalists to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest in May.