The participants in the national selection for Eurovision Song Contest are dissatisfied with the fact that the national radio stations and television channels do not promote their songs, Info-Prim Neo reports. Moldova’s participation in Eurovision this year was discussed at Thursday’s meeting of the Press Club that was attended by three competitors: Olia Tira, Alexa and Dana Marchitan. The latter said that the artists that respect themselves will not pay the radio and television stations to have their songs promoted and that the local broadcasters should be grateful that the songs are offered to them free of charge. The singers said that they promoted their songs on their websites and on the radio on their own initiative. They appeared on the covers of local magazines, but the promotion is still inadequate for Eurovision. Olia Tira’s producer Serghei Orlov said that this year the singers were best promoted on the Internet. Though such a promotion cannot have a great effect on the national public, it is important for influencing the foreign public. Referring to the local mass media’s disinterest in promoting the contest songs, Orlov said that the main problem is that the local artists are not appreciated. Vitalie Cojocaru, chairman of the organisational committee of the national pre-selection stage for Eurovision, said that Moldova 1 did not promote the songs because not all the singers had their videos ready and in order to remain impartial the videos of the other singers were not broadcast either. Moldova’s representative to Eurovision will be selected on February 9. Twelve singers will compete in the national final. The winner will be elected by the jury and the public. Vitalie Cojocaru said that the European Organisational Committee does not impose restrictions on the method of choosing the national representative. The voting this year will have three components: the public, the professional jury and the team of experts of Teleradio Moldova Company that, as producers, hope to have a decisive vote, Cojocaru said. Asked to comment on President’s statement that we should not take part in Eurovision if we do not have a suitable candidate, Cojocaru said that this assertion should be regarded as an warning to the organisational committee to be more exigent when assessing the singers and to the singers to make every effort to give a good performance. The jury members will have equal powers, Cojocaru said. The members will know that they will form part of the professional jury only on February 9. The jury will be formed of personalities from the cultural and artistic domains proposed by the creation unions. He assured that the jury will not be biased. When voting, the jury members will stay separately so as they are not able to talk with each other. A phone call made by the public through the mobile or fixed-line network during the voting will cost eight lei.