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From ESC Daily

The Eurovision Song Contest 2011 ended last night with a victory for Azerbaijan. 2012 is the next step in Eurovision history and eight countries have already confirmed their participation!

Of course it is logical that Azerbaijan confirmed participation, as they are the winners of this year and the host for 2012. Their national final will most likely be called ‘Land of Fire’ again.

Almost immediately after their qualification from Semi-final 1 this Tuesday, Switzerland confirmed to participate in 2012. The date for their national final, which will once again be called ‘Die große Entscheidungsshow’, is planned for 10th December 2011. Switzerland has won Eurovision twice, the first edition in 1956 was won by Lys Assia’s ‘Refrain’ and also in 1988, with Céline Dion’s ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’.

Also Belgium confirmed participation. They are already participating since the very first edition in 1956 and they have won once in 1986, with Sandra Kim’s ‘J’aime La Vie’. As always, RTBF, the Walloon broadcaster and responsible for the 2011 entry ’With Love Baby’ by Witloof Bay, will hand over the responsibilities to VRT, the Flemish broadcaster. VRT has announced to ’follow a Tom Dice like path to Eurovision 2012′.

Next confirmation comes from Austria. They were rather successful in 2011, with their ballad ‘The secret is love’ by Nadine Beiler. Also in 2012 they plan to attend the Eurovision Song Contest. Austria has won the contest once, fourty-five years ago, in 1966, when Udo Jürgens took the victory with the love ballad ‘Merci, Chérie’.

Finland will also be attending Eurovision 2012. Their representative Paradise Oskar made the final with his social-environmental song ‘Da Da Dam’. It was only five years ago, in 2006, that Finland won the contest for the first time. Lordi won in Athens with ‘Hard rock hallelujah’.

This year’s host, Germany, is also participating in 2012. They have also confirmed to work, just like in 1998 (6th), 2000 (5th), 2004 (8th), 2010 (1st) and 2011 (10th), with Stefan Raab to pick their entry. This has turned out to be rather succesfull: all of those entries scored a top ten place, with 2010 being the second victory in the German history, after Nicole won in 1982 with a ballad about world peace, ‘Ein Bisschen Frieden’.

Also Estonia has confirmed their participation and they will also be running their selection procedure ‘Eesti Laul’ again. This year Estonia qualified for the final as one of the bigger favourites for a victory. Getter Jaani scored a 24th place with ‘Rockefeller Street’. Estonia has won once, in 2001, when Tanel Padar, Dave Benton and 2XL sand ‘Everybody’.

So far the last confirmation comes from The Netherlands. TROS, the broadcaster, has confirmed to once again participate in 2012. Their result this year, 3JS came last in the semi-final with only thirteen points, has not influenced this decision. Even though voices in the Netherlands are rising to quit Eurovision, TROS is sure about its decision and will go on in 2012, according to Peter Kuipers, president of TROS.

Eddy Anselmi, project manager at RTVSM, the Sammarinese broadcaster, has said that both Italy and San Marino will participate in 2012. Strong signs that they will participate, but both RAI and RTVSM have not confirmed officially.

France has also shown strong interest. On website www.eurovision-fr.net, plans for a 2012 national final have been revealed, but no official messages are made yet.

Hungary has also shown interest, but no official statements by MTV, the broadcaster, have been made yet.

How strange that all of the least successful nations have all announced that they're coming back first! Woo for Austria and Switzerland and Belgium's selection sounds promising. I'm glad that Stefan Raab is staying involved with Germany, I hadn't noticed until just now that Lena coming top ten extends his streak of associated top tens to five Nice that Germany have managed back to back top tens this year, even if it meant being Blue missed out.