Welcome to the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest 2007 at the Hartwell Arena in Helsinki, Finland, last year’s winning country. We all remember the energetic performance and monster costumes of hard rock group Lordi, who breathed a new style into Eurovision 2006.

This year, the semi-finals will take place on Thursday, 10 May with the finals held on Saturday, 12 May. The team of two Finnish presenters is now known: Jaana Pelkonen (a TV presenter) and Mikko Leppilampi (an actor/singer). The countries that automatically qualified for the finals are: Germany, Spain, France and the United Kingdom, as well as the 10 top-scoring countries from the 2006 Song Contest. All other countries must participate in the semi-finals; the top 10 countries will then qualify for the finals. Four new countries are participating for the first time in the competition: Georgia, Serbia, Montenegro and the Czech Republic.

The Eurovision Song Contest is organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the largest professional association of national radio broadcasters, with 74 active members from 54 countries in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, and 48 associate members from 28 countries in other regions around the world.

Belgium has had some auspicious moments at the Eurovision: in 1986, Sandra Kim and her famous “J’aime la vie” (“I love life”) won the contest, a victory which allowed us to organise the finals of the Eurovision Song Contest in Brussels in 1987. We can also recall the second places won by Jean Vallée in 1978 (“L’Amour ça fait chanter la vie”/”Love makes life sing”) and by the Celtic-inspired group Urban Trad in 2003 (“Sanomi”).

This year, the RTBF is in charge of selecting the song which will represent Belgium at the contest. It isn’t only The KMG’s who have been called upon to defend our flag. The rules of the contest stipulate that the song must be completely new and that it cannot exceed three minutes. Only six artists can be present on the big Eurovision stage, and they must all be at least 16 years old by the day of the semi-finals. The singers and chorus members must sing live.