Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005
The Finnish participating broadcaster, Yleisradio (Yle), organised the national final Euroviisut 2005 to select its entry for the contest.Twelve entries competed in the final on 19 February where votes from six regional juries first selected the top six to advance to a second round.Both the writers and singer(s) had to hold Finnish citizenship or live in Finland permanently in order for the entry to qualify to compete.[2][6] A panel of twelve experts appointed by Yle selected sixteen entries for the competition from a record number of 503 received submissions, while an additional eight entries came from composers directly invited by Yle: Maki Kolehmainen, Samuli Laiho, Kristian Maukonen, Petri Munck, Esa Nieminen, Sipe Santapukki, Mikko Tamminen and Arttu Peljo, and Mika Toivanen.The song "Du ger kärleken ett svar" performed by Geir Rönning and Nina Tapio was translated from Swedish to English and titled "My One and Only Love", while "Joo joo" performed by I'Dees was translated from Finnish to English and titled "Yeah, yeah".[14][15] In addition to the competing entries, Boney M, Frederik and Laura (who represented Finland in 2002) performed as the interval acts in all four semi-finals.[18] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country, the "Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2004 contest are required to qualify from the semi-final on 19 May 2005 in order to compete for the final on 21 May 2005; the top ten countries from the semi-final progress to the final.[20] The semi-final and the final were televised in Finland on Yle TV2 with commentary in Finnish by Jaana Pelkonen, Heikki Paasonen and Asko Murtomäki.