The preparations for the 2009 Junior Eurovision Song Contest are proceeding as planned.  Further to a comprehensive review of the current situation in Ukraine and discussions between European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Host Broadcaster NTU and the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, a decision has been reached that the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, will take place on 21 November at the Palats Sportu in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Over ten million televotes were received during the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, the European Broadcasting Union and its voting partner Digame reveal today. With 8,825,527 calls and text messages received in 2008, this year's Eurovision Song Contest saw an increase of over 20 percent.

After two independent audits, and in the spirit of transparancy and openess, the European Broadcasting Union is now fulfilling its promise and releases what you've been waiting for; the split jury- and televoting results of the Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest!

It is still over five months before the 2009 Junior Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Kyiv, Ukraine, yet the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Steering Group of the event already picked the destination for the 2010 running of the contest! The bid to host the 8th Junior Eurovision Song Contest was won by Belarusian broadcaster BTRC, which will host the competition at the brand new Minsk Arena in the country's capital.

Young talents between 10 and 15 years old from 13 countries will gather in Kyiv, Ukraine, this November to take part in the 7th running of the annual Junior Eurovision Song Contest, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announces today. The live show, hosted by national public broadcaster NTU, is set to take place on Saturday, 21st of November, and will be broadcast live on television across Europe and on the internet via www.junioreurovision.tv.

After an exciting voting in front of thousands of people in a fully packed Moscow Olimpisky Indoor Arena and millions of TV viewers all over Europe, it was finally Alexander Rybak from Norway who received the highest number of points from televoters and juries from the 42 countries participating in this year's edition of Europe's favourite TV-show! Norway managed to gather 387 points altogether - a new record! -, followed by Yohanna from Iceland with 218 points and Azerbaijan's AySel & Arash who collected 207 points. You can find the full results of the Grand Final here and of the 2 Semi-Finals here and here.

This afternoon, the first dress rehearsal for the Grand Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest was taking place. 25 songs from 25 countries have qualified for the final of Europe's favourite TV show and Eurovision.tv was in the venue to update you what is happening on the huge Moscow stage!

Today Denmark, Slovenia, Hungary, Azerbaijan and Greece had their second rehearsals and press conferences, the Big Four - Germany, UK, Spain and France - and Russia their first rehearsals.

Today Romania, Finland, Portugal, Malta, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Ireland, Latvia, Serbia, Poland, Norway, Cyprus and Armenia had their second rehearsals and press conferences.

Today the first representatives of nine countries had the chance to rehearse. Montenegro was up first, followed by Czech Republic, Belarus, Belgium, Sweden, Armenia, Andorra and Switzerland. The last one to rehearse was Hadise from Turkey. 

Due to some problems at the accreditation centre, Belgian Patrick Ouchène was only 4th to rehearse today even if the country was drawn 3rd in the running order for the first Semi-Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Patrick took this problems with a laugh though when he met up with the eurovision.tv team in the accreditation centre and said that he would feel perfectly at home here in Moscow.

In a change to the scheduling in Moscow today, Belarus were the third country to rehearse. Petr Elfimov performed his entry Eyes That Never Lie.

Back in February, Igor Cukrov and Andrea Šušnjara won the Croatian Dora 2009 festival with the song Lijepa Tena written by the highly popular and experienced songwriting team Tonči and Vjekoslava Huljić. Both Igor and Andrea are confident of their songs chances for success in Europe's favourite TV show and they both shared some of their thoughts on the task ahead in Moscow with Eurovision.tv

Urban Symphony have won Eesti Laul 2009 with the Sven Lõhmus song Rändajad, and will now represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

Tonight saw the last of five Swedish semi-finals for their national selection, the immensely popular Melodifestivalen! In contrast to the four semis before, this fifth one didn't include new songs, instead it featured those artists who had come 3rd and 4th respectively in the first four heats, thus getting a second chance to qualify. The 8 participating songs competed against each other in duels of two in two rounds of voting and the lucky ones winning both their duels were Sarah Dawn Finer and Caroline af Ugglas! Those two grabbed spot nine and ten for the grand final - and the 11th song - decided by an international jury tonight - will be Sofia!

Estonia will select their Eurovision Song Contest entry this evening in a special show called Eesti Laul 2009. Watch LIVE through the Eurovision.tv webcast, starting at 20:40 CET.

Martina Majerle is the lead singer with the group Quartissimo who will perform the 2009 Slovenian Eurovision Song Contest entry Love Symphony composed by Andrej Babic. This will be Martina's fourth participation in the contest and Eurovision.tv's Glen Webb caught up with Martina.

Israel have selected their entry for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest this evening during a special Kdam Eurovision show this evening. Noa & Mira Awad will go to Moscow with the song Einaiych (There Must Be Another Way).

This evening, the Kdam Eurovision show will take place in Israel, where the chosen artists Noa and Mira Awad will perform four songs, one of which will go on to represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow in May.

Tonight, the Bosnian entry for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest will be revealed in a live television show. An internal jury has already chosen the group Regina to represent the country. You can enjoy the show through the Eurovision.tv webcast, starting at 21:00 CET.

After a long selection process over the past months, Soraya has won the Spanish national selection with the song La Noche Es Para Mí  and will go on to represent her country in the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow in May.

Latvian broadcaster LTV had hesitated long with their decision to participate in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Only after finding sponsors for the country's participation, LTV finally gave green light for Moscow. The initial plans to hold three semi-finalists were cancelled though, only one semi-final and a final should now pave the way for a successful Latvian entry - and it was finally Intars Busulis who was selected as the nation's entry for the song contest in Moscow!

Igor Cukrov has won the Dora 2009 this evening, and will go forward to represent Croatia in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest with the Tonči Huljić & Vjekoslava Huljić
song Lijepa Tena.

Malmö, Sweden's third biggest city, had the honour of hosting the 4th Swedish semi-final of Melodifestivalen 2009 on this last day of February. Eight songs were on offer again, but only two got a direct ticket for the grand final which will take place in two weeks' time in the capital Stockholm. Those two most popular songs tonight came from Agnes and Malena Ernman!

This evening the semi final of the Croatian national selection, Dora 2009 has taken place. Six songs have now progressed to tomorrow evenings final show, joining the ten automatically invited finalists.

Eurovision.tv can exclusively reveal the first artist impression of the stage of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest to you. The impressive structure, which radically breaks recent Eurovision Song Contest traditions, has been designed by New York-based set designer John Casey and has been revealed to the Heads of Delegation of the 43 participating countries earlier tonight.

The Swiss representative Lovebugs will take the song The Highest Heights to the stage in Moscow, at the 54th Eurovision Song Contest in May.

In a splendid final tonight in Oslo's Spektrum, it was Norway's turn to choose their singer for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest. Eight songs were on offer and experts juries and the televote decided that Alexander Rybak's Fairytale would be the one song that would represent the country best! Alexander's victory came as no surprise: almost all betting agencies had seen him as the big favourite as the song is already No.1 in the official Norwegian charts!

Tonight, the small town of Leksand saw the third semi-final of Sweden's most watched programme: Melodifestivalen 2009! More than 3 million viewers watched the first two episodes - an unbelievably high number bearing in mind that Sweden has just over 9 million inhabitants! The two lucky winners in tonight who got the highest number of televotes were Molly Sandén and E.M.D! They will join the already qualified Alcazar, Emilia, H.E.A.T and Måns Zelmerlöw in the grand final which will take place on the 14th of March in Stockholm's Globen Arena.

Ireland has chosen. In a two-hour show this evening Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy were decided as the Irish representative for Moscow. The result was decided both by a jury and by televoting.

Tonight - after 4 weeks of semi-finals - will see the grand ending of Norway's selection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest! Who will be the winner of Melodi Grand Prix and represent Norway in the second Semi-Final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow in May? Eight songs and singers have qualified for tonight's big show and according to experts, the two acts with the biggest chances to win the trophy are Alexander Rybak with his song Fairytale and Tone Damli Aaberge performing Butterflies! You will be able watch tonight's show LIVE on eurovision.tv HERE from 19:55h CET onwards!

On Friday night, the time has come for Ireland to choose the representative for Moscow. The Irish final, consisting of six entries, will be broadcast locally and on the Internet starting from 22:35 CET.

Ukrainian national TV station NTU has announced the 15 singers who will compete for the honour to represent Ukraine at the 54th Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. 

The Icelanders have made their mind up. Jóhanna Guðrún Jónsdóttir with Is It True is the song for Moscow this year. The entry will spearhead Iceland in the first semi-final.

The Polish televoting audience and a specially-formed jury decided tonight who will represent Poland in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow: it was Lidia Kopania who managed to get the highest combined votes and will now follow up last year's Isis Gee!

Tonight in Ålesund, the Norwegian last chance contest called Siste Sjansen took place. Espen Hana with Two Of a Kind and Publiners with Te Stein were the two acts who won the final two places in the Norwegian national final to be held in the Oslo Spektrum on Saturday 21st February.

Another week, another Semi-Final in the highly popular Swedish national final Melodifestivalen! Saturday saw again 8 artists fighting for two vacant spots for the final in Stockholm's Globen. The lucky ones qualifying from the second heat - which took place in Skellefteå up in Sweden's north - were H.E.A.T and Måns Zelmerlöw!

“My biggest dream in life is to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest.” In tonight's semi-final from the northern town of Skellefteå Måns Zelmerlöw begins his quest for Moscow. The long-time favourite in this years Melodifestivalen, a great fan of Eurovision, now reveals his dream of Moscow and his new entry Hope & Glory.

Tonight's the night for the Icelandic people. After four semi-finals the hugely popular Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins finally comes to an end and the participant for Moscow is decided. "80 percent of the nation is watching the final," says Regína Ósk, representing Iceland in 2008.

Tonight, at 20.15h CET, the Polish nation will have the possibility to watch their broadcaster's try to find a winner for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest which will take place on the 12th, 14th and 16th of May in Russia's capital Moscow. 10 songs will be competing live in the TVP studios in Warsaw - who will be the one that gets the most points from the jury and the televote?