Germany is determined to bring back the trophy from Malmรถ. This became clear after an interview from Thomas Schreiber, head of entertainment of ARD, with eurovision.de
Thomas claims that the reason to have also another title ‘A song for Malmรถ’, instead of the previous ‘Our Star for Baku’ is that they are working this year with many known names, like Cascada, Mannheim, Ben Ivory and Mobilee. Whilst in ‘Our star for Baku’ they had more new names instead.
The songs for the national final to be held on 14th february will be released in the weeks after Christmas. There will be also an internetvoting in the week before the final when the listeners of various radio stations will be able to hear the songs on their websites and can cast a vote. This will be one third of the voting. The other parts will be a jury voting and the televoting on the night itself.
Thomas Schreiber confirmed also that this show is the first step towards a German variant of Melodifestivalen. He claims germany wants to bring back the trophy. ‘Whats the point of taking part’ if you don’t want to win? There are surely some tracks for the National Final that are potential winning songs for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.
Thomas is also concerned about the withdrawal of several countries such as Portugal, Poland and Turkey. Especially also member of the Reference Group. But if there would be any action taken to prevent this was not given.