Eurosong '06

Eurosong '06 was the Belgian national final for choosing a candidate that performed the Belgian entry at the semi final of Eurovision Song Contest 2006 on May 18th in Athens, Greece.

This year, the selection process involved the staging of seven TV broadcast shows; the final on February 19th, plus four quarter finals and two semi finals held during January and early February 2006. The shows were aired on Flemish broadcaster VRT. Each qualifying heat contained seven songs and the top three from each heat proceeded to one of the two semi finals. After the quarter finals, the jury chose two wildcards - one for each of the semi finals - bringing the total amount of songs in each semi final to seven. The top three of each semi final proceeded to the final and the jury selected one wildcard to bring the total in the final to seven. The list of performers in the qualifiers included two former Eurovision representatives for Belgium, Vanessa Chinitor (1999) and Barbara Dex (1993). The big local stars Belle Perez, Kate Ryan and "Idols" winner and World Idol's third place laureate, Peter Evrard, were considered to be the favourites, and it was Ryan who emerged victorious. She sang the song "Je t'adore" at the Eurovision semifinals, but she did not make it into the final stage of the contest.

The songs were judged by a professional jury (consisting of Yasmine, Marcel Vanthilt, André Vermeulen and twice Eurovision winner Johnny Logan), Radio 2, Radio Donna, Press Jury and televoters. Three European juries were implemented in the final.

The quarter finals

First quarter final

January 8th

Fourth quarter final

January 29th
*The day after the last semi final, Brahim was chosen to be the professional jury wild card in the Belgian final.

The final

February 11th
*In the final, there were implemented three international juries - one German, one Israeli and one Polish - in addition to the already existing juries and the televoters.
*Each international jury consisted of eight - 8 - members, four random viewers and four music experts. They will watch the show from their native countries where it will be streamed live for them.
*The division of powers between the different juries were like this; 40% for national juries, 30% for international juries and 30% for televoters.
*The decision for broadcaster VRT to choose these three countries to represent the European audience was based on a study they asked two independent professors in statistics to do, on which countries gave the points most close to the actual results in the last few Eurovision Song Contests.

Kate to defend Belgian colours

Kate Ryan won the national final after being a top three favourite with all eight juries, and being the top favourite amongst the televoters and two of the international juries, thus going on to represent Belgium in Athens, Greece, at the semi final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006, to be held on Thursday May 18th. The uptempo winning composition, "Je t'adore" - with a French title but English lyrics - was written by Kate herself and three Swedish composers; Niklas Bergwall, Niclas Kings and Lisa Greene - becoming the third song after Switzerland and Estonia with Swedish participation in this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Kate Ryan is an artist name, she was born Katrien Verbeeck, in 1980. Kate hit world-wide fame in 2002 when she made a dance cover of the Mylène Farmer song "Désenchantée", topping the sales charts in both her native Belgium, France and The Netherlands, and taken from her debut album "Different". Her second album "Stronger" came in 2004.

ee also

*Eurovision Song Contest 2006
*Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest