PBS have today one day after confirming participation to esctoday.com revealed the rules for this years National Selection. Songs can be submitted to PBS until the 31st of October, foreign composers and lyricists are allowed to take part but the artist must have Maltese citizenship.
As normal PBS have banned artists who represented Malta in the past 5 years from taking part this means that Morena (2008), Chiara (2009), Thea Garret (2010), Glen Vella (2011) and Kurt Calleja (2012) are not able to take part. This rule is nicknamed by the fans as the Chiara rule.
All the songs that are entered to PBS will be heard by a panel of judges and will select 24 songs to go into a semi final. From that semi final 16 songs will progress to the final, the winner will be chosen by a 50/50 jury and televote. The date of the semi final and final have not been announced.
