Rules published for Bulgarian selection

Bulgarian National Television (BNT) has published the Rules for its national selection in 2012. The deadline for submitting entries is the 11th of November 2011. The Rules stipulate that either the artist or one of the following - writer of the lyrics, composer, author of the arrangement – must have Bulgarian citizenship.

As with the past few years, a professional jury will play a major role in the selection process. The establishment of a special academy last year turned out to be very successful and BNT has decided to continue utlising this in 2012.

This time around the academy will consist of between 20 and 35 members, all of which are representatives from professional organisations for singers, musicians, composers, producers, writers, music oriented media, etc.

From all the entries submitted to BNT as audio files, the academy will select 60. These 60 songs will then be presented live before the experts at BNT’s Studio 1. Only 30 of them will qualify to the two semifinals (15 in each semifinal) on the 12th and 14th of December 2011. 6 songs from each semifinal will go to the final.

The semifinals will be broadcast live and the winning songs will be chosen by the academy and through SMS voting at a ratio of 50:50.

The 12 songs that qualify from the two semifinals will be presented on the 28th of January 2012 in a show at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. This will be broadcast live on BNT. The voting procedure here will be the same as in the semifinals.

The winner will represent Bulgaria at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan on the 22nd, 24th and 26th of May.