Radio International - The Ultimate Eurovision Experience (2025-02-19): Interview with Ziferblat (Ukraine 2025), Annika Wickihalder & Greczula from Melo, News, plus much more

Radio International - The Ultimate Eurovision Experience is broadcast from Malta's Radio 105FM on Tuesday evenings from 2100 - 0059 hours CET. The show is broadcast live on Wednesday evenings from 1900 - 2300 hours CET on the Eurovision Radio International Mixcloud Channel as well as on the Facebook Page of Eurovision Radio International with an interactive chatroom.

AT A GLANCE - ON THE SHOW THIS WEEK

• Live Interview with Ziferblat (Ukraine 2025)
• Melodifeativalen 2025 - Heat 3 - A look back:  Interviews with Greczula and Annika Wickihalder - Finalists and more.
• Eurovision Spotlight:  Eurovision 2025 - The National Final Season with Dermot Manning
• Söngvakeppnin 2025 - Iceland's National Final Song Preview
• Eurovision News with Nick van Lith from www.escXtra.com
• Eurovision Birthday File with David Mann
• Eurovision Cover Spot with David Mann
• Eurovision Calendar with Javier Leal
• Eurovision 2025 National Final Updates with Alain Forrotti 
• New Music Releases by Eurovision Artists
• Your music requests

The Eurovision Spotlight - The National Final Season: With the beginning of a New Year is also the start of the National Final Season for the Eurovision Song Contest. Montenegro returns to the contest in 2025 and had already selected their entry in November 2024. 36 countries are taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 which will be taking place on 13 and 15 May 2024 for the two Semi Finals and the Grand Final on 17 May 2025. Radio International will be taking a look at the national finals and showcase the highlights every week in the Eurovision Spotlight as Chris Poppe continues the series looking at the countries' selection shows of the past week.

Live Interview with Ziferblat (Ukraine 2025): The Winners of Vidbir 2025 and with that the Musical Ambassadors to the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 from Ukraine - Ziferblat will join the Radio International Interview Team this week on the show live. Ukraine will be in Semi Final 1 in the First Half singing the song "Bird of Pray" and follow in the footsteps of Alyona Alyona and Jerry Heil who in 2024 came 3rd in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Teresa & Maria". Listeners who tune in live on Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 encouraged to send in their questions to Ziferblat. You can do that via this link - CLICK HERE.

Eurovision 2025 Song Preview - Iceland: In view of the upcoming national final Söngvakeppnin in Iceland on 22 Feb 2025 Radio International will be introducing competing song on the show this week. Iceland will compete in Semi Final 1 in the First Half. Ten acts are battling it out for the ticket to Basel to represent Iceland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025. Let's get to know the songs this week on the show.

 

Melodifestivalen 2025: Sweden's national final is called Melodifestivalen and is the biggest one in the world of the Eurovision Song Contest. It is the 65th edition and is produced by Swedish broadcaster SVT. 30 entries out of 2794 submitted songs made it to the shows. The 30 entries will take part in the competition across five heats. Each heat consists of six songs, with the top two songs directly qualifying for the final. Unlike in the previous edition, only the third-placing song will proceed to a final qualification round at the end of the fifth heat, which will now feature five songs instead of ten. The top two songs in the final qualification will then progress to the final, which will comprise 12 songs. The winner of the final will be determined by the usual 50/50 combination of votes from the public and an international jury. All shows will all be hosted by Edvin Törnblom and Kristina Petrushina.The dates and locations of the shows is shown below:

Heat 1 on 01 Feb 2025 in Luleå
Heat 2 on 08 Feb 2025 in Gothenburg
Heat 3 on 15 Feb 2025 in Västerås
Heat 4 on 22 Feb 2025 in Malmö
Heat 5 on 01 Mar 2025 in Jönköping
Grand Final on 08 Mar 2025 in Stockhoplm's Strawberry (Friends) Arena

More details of the participating artists you can find over at our friends of wikipedia - click here.

 

Melodifestivalen 2025 - Heat 3 Interviews:  Congratulations to Greczula and Annika Wickihalder were selected by the Swedish Public to go directly into the Grand Final of Melodifestivalen 2025 in Stockholm. Dolly Style made it to the Second Chance Round (Final Kval). Radio International was in Västeras and interviewed all the participants. Listen to the chats on the show this week. You can see the Complete Coverage of Melodifestivalen 2025 - Heat 3 by clicking here.


Also JP will be joined by David Mann for the Eurovision Birthday File and Eurovision Coverspot.  Nick will be presenting the Eurovision News courtesy of escXtra.com. There will be a lot of the great new releases of Eurovision artists on the show as well as great Eurovision Classics. Javier will be updating us on the upcoming Eurovision events in the Eurovision Calendar whereas Alain Forrotti updates you where you can watch the Eurovision National Finals for 2025, and and and....

 

 

Find out more details of how to tune in live - click here

For full details of this week's Show Content and Play List - click here