received by the broadcaster, of which 59 were valid. A jury panel was tasked with selecting fifteen entries to proceed to the televised national final. The jury consisted of Vladimir Maksimkov (general producer of the First Channel), Yuriy Tsarev (head of the radio station "Radius FM"), Leonid Zakhlevny (artistic director of the ensemble Beseda), Viktor Babarikin (chief conductor of the Presidential Orchestra of the Republic of Belarus), Eduard Zaritsky (composer), Vladimir Ivanov (composer), Vasily Rainchik (musician/composer), Raisa Baravikova (chief editor of the magazine "Maladost"), Alexander Tikhanovich (singer) and Yuriy Igrusha (general producer of the broadcaster ONT). The selected finalists were announced on 31 December 2003. On 4 January 2004, BTRC announced that "Kali chakra, a i luz" performed by Jur'ya had been disqualified from the national final due to the band not signing the contract for participation. They were replaced with the song "People Say" performed by Adelina Petrosyan. Final The televised final took place on 31 January 2004 at the BTRC studios in Minsk, hosted by Larisa Gribaleva and Ales Kruglyakov. Prior to the competition, a draw for the running order took place on 22 January 2004. The performances of the competing entries were filmed on 23 January 2004, and the majority were performed in English despite their Russian titles. A public vote consisting of televoting and online voting selected the song "Moy galiley" performed by Aleksandra and Konstantin as the winner. Controversy The Belarusian national final caused controversy due to accusations of vote rigging. In addition to the collapse of the online voting platform due to high influx, figures provided by communications company Beltelecom revealed that Natalia Podolskaya was the actual winner with 14,506 votes while Aleksandra and Konstantin only placed third with 2,260 votes. Beltelecom later clarified that the official results from BTRC were based on votes received from another company as they did not directly provide the broadcaster with services for conducting the voting. Podolskaya's father stated that he would be filling a lawsuit to nullify the voting results. At Eurovision It was announced that the competition's format would be expanded to include a semi-final in 2004. According to the rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country, the "Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) and the ten highest placed finishers in the 2003 contest are required to qualify from the semi-final on 12 May 2004 in order to compete for