In Belgium, Flemish broadcaster VRT and Walloon broadcaster RTBF take turns in selecting the candidate for the Eurovision Song Contest. For 2010, it's VRT's responsibility to find the singer for Europe's favourite TV show. Tom Dice was selected internally at the end of last year, which marked an end to VRT's selection format with several semi-finals and a final. This had served as the broadcaster's way of selecting the Belgian entry since 1999.
The reason for the change is, according to VRT, that the winning entries, even though the national selection has been quite popular in the country and the songs have been successful in the national charts, the entries have not done very well at the Eurovision Song Contest itself.
On the 25th of November, VRT announced that it had selected Tom Dice, runner-up of the Belgian version of The X Factor, internally to represent Belgium at the contest in May. Tom Dice was born in 1989, and his passion for music started when he was 8 years old. At the age of 12, he composed his first song. He was part of a band named The Dice, but decided to go solo afterwards. He is mostly known for participating in the Belgian edition of X-Factor in 2008, where he ended up second. Since then, he released his single Bleeding Love. His main musical influences are Gavin DeGraw, Taylor Swift, Tyler Hilton, Damien Rice, The Kooks, Muse, Placebo and System Of A Down.
Tonight's show, Eurosong 2010: een song voor Tom Dice!, will be hosted by Bart Peeters. Apart from presenting which song Tom Dice will take to Oslo, they will also try to find answers to who Tom Dice really is, if he's ready for the Eurovision Song Contest and how they should "sell him" abroad. Guests including Marcel Vanthilt, Siska Schoeters, André Vermeulen, Peter Van de Veire and Sergio will help in the search for answers.
In 2009, Belgium didn't manage to qualify for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest when Copycat got stuck in the first Semi-Final.
This year, Belgium will compete in the first semi-final of the contest, on the 25th of May.
Watch the entire show from Belgium, starting at 21:15, here on Eurovision.tv in our ESCTV Player!
