Eirodziesma 2009
The Latvian selection for the 2009 contest will be Eirodziesma 2009. Changes had been made to the Eirodziesma format since the 2008 contest for the 2009 edition.
A deadline for entries for the contest was set at 30 November 2008. All songs entered could not have been made public before 1 October 2008, in line with Eurovision rules. Each songwriter could not have submitted more than two songs, and only a third of songs allowed to compete in the contest were to be by foreign authors. Songs submitted for preselection in other countries were also not allowed.
The format of Eirodziesma had changed since the 2008 contest. Three semi finals were to have taken place during January and February 2009. Three songs from each selection out of nine were to qualify for the final through a mixture of jury and televoting. A 10th song was to be chosen at a Second Chance heat during the last semi final, and the public would have decided the final song to qualify through 100% televote. The final of Eirodziesma 2009 was to have taken place on 28 February 2009. Due to financial difficulties, LTV were forced to cut down the number of semi-finals to be held from three to just one. The semi-final will take place on 27 February, with the final a day later on 28 February.
108 songs were received by LTV to compete in Eirodziesma. 78 songs entered were by Latvian composers, with 30 songs being from international songwriters. The 21 songs that were to have competed in the three semi-finals of Eirodziesma 2009 were announced on 9 December. Due to the cancellation of the show, followed by its reinstatement, LTV asked all participants to confirm their intent to participate in the semi-final. All of the initial 21 artists confirmed their intention to compete.
A number of changes were made to the line-up before the semi-final. Kristīna Zaharova, who was to perform two songs in the contest, withdrew her song "I Wish I Could Pretend", composed by Lauris Reiniks and Gordon Pogoda, from the contest after being accepted into the Irish national final, held on 20 February. Her remaining song, "Angel of Mine", composed by Martinš Freimanis, was then performed as a duet between her and Annija Putniņa.
Two more changes to the line-up were also made: the song "In Love In Trust", originally to be performed by Aisha, Ella, Olga, will now be performed by Policistas, while "Have To Say Goodbye" will now be performed by Astra, instead of its composer Madara Celma. The running order was announced on 13 January.
Read more about this topic: Latvia In The Eurovision Song Contest 2009