'Germany 12 Points' 2022 preview

This weekend will see two more of Eurovision's "Big Five" select their entries for Turin in May, and first out of the blocks will be Germany on Friday evening (Saturday morning "Down Under") with the country's newly-titled, national final show: 'Germany 12 Points'.

So, what can we expect live from Berlin?

The artists and songs

The six pre-selected acts, revealed at a press conference just under a month ago, will each take to the stage to perform their entry in the following running order:

• Malik Harris - 'Rockstars'

• Maël & Jonas - 'I Swear to God'

• eros atomus - 'Alive'

• Emily Roberts - 'Soap'

• Felicia Lu - 'Anxiety'

• Nico Suave & Team Liebe - 'Hallo Welt'

Our song release/artist announcement article provides details of the performers and the competing entries, and you can watch the official videos accompanying the six songs on YouTube.

The two favourites in the odds to represent Germany at the 66th edition of the Contest are currently Felicia Lu with 'Anxiety' (above) and Malik Harris with 'Rockstars' (below); this mirrors our own rankings here at Aussievision (you can find the full ranking and contributor comments here). However, as the past has shown, nothing is ever certain in a national final.

The voting process

The process to crown the winner is fairly simply: the song that receives the most votes online, by telephone and SMS will perform on the Pala Alpitour stage at the 2022 Eurovision Grand Final on 14 May.

Online voting via the regional radio station websites of national broadcaster ARD opened on Monday (28 February) and will close at 8:00pm CET today (Friday, 4 March). The votes cast in this way will account for 50% of the result; the remaining 50% will be determined by the televoting during the show. Yes, that's right, folks: there is no jury!

The show

The conflict in Ukraine has brought about significant changes to ARD's schedule, with a programme entitled 'Wir helfen - Gemeinsam mit Ukraine' (which will talk to people affected by the war and seek to raise funds to assist those in need) taking over the original 8.15 pm CET timeslot and 'Germany 12 Points' now being shown from 9:00pm CET on the broadcaster's flagship 'Das Erste' channel.

The contrast between the current conflict in Europe and the peaceful aims of the Eurovision Song Contest will be reinforced by the appearance of the 2016 Contest's victor Jamala at the German national final and a must-see performance of her emotive winning song '1944'.

The show will be hosted by perennial and much-loved German Eurovision personality Barbara Schöneberger, the country's Eurovision spokesperson since 2015, and feature guest performances by 2014 Austrian champion Conchita Wurst ('Rise Like A Phoenix') and the New South Wales-born frontwoman of Germany's 2006 representatives Texas Lightning, Jane Comerford. Great to see some Aussie involvement as ever!

In addition, and most excitingly for this Eurovision fan, a special version of Nicole's 'Ein bißchen Frieden', which won the Contest almost exactly 40 years ago, is also planned. I predict it'll be a very moving rendition.

The national final is slated to run for 90 minutes from 9:00 pm to 10.30 pm CET. This will be 7:00am to 8:30am AEDT on Saturday morning in Australia.)

It will be available to livestream via eurovision.de and daserste.de. Alternatively, you can use the ARD Mediathek app, which is available to download from the App Store and Google Play.

The wunderbarer Dale and I will be live tweeting the final, so do come and join us over at @aussievisionnet, where I'll also be endeavouring to help non-German speakers follow the proceedings. Bis dann!