Lied van Liedjes 17

This was the seventeenth Lied van Liedjes to be held. The final event, the biggest, was held on 22nd December 2001 with Semi-Finals and Golden Duel nights happening between 17th December 2001 until 19th December 2001, and on the 21st December 2001 - on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of that week.

Organization
The host city was chosen very quickly to be the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. Vik Vitanova, the winner of the previous edition and also the 8th edition was barred from entering the contest for Bulgaria in this single edition as the Bulgarians didn't want a possible third host and a consecutive one at that.

Hans Weiss returned for a second edition as director. Eliza Boterman remained on as Executive Producer.

Iraq returned to the contest but was edited out of some broadcasts of the contest in countries like the United States. Israel and Luxembourg withdrew. Switzerland debuted after resolving conflicts within their broadcaster.

Contest


With 43 participants, each semi final would include 19 participants, with ten qualifiers. The grand final would include ten qualifiers from each Semi-Final, and the five automatically qualifying nations for a total of 26 countries. The automatic qualifiers would be the top 5 from the previous edition.

Pots for Semi Finals
To avoid too many similar countries in the same semi final, each country would be placed in a geographical or cultural group and then drawn to be in the semi final from there.

Other Countries

 * - the Algerian broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Canadian broadcaster, who is participating in the Commonwealth spin-off tournament, appealed to the contest to allow their participation despite being in North America. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Egyptian broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Israeli broadcaster upon hearing of Iraq's returned protested the move. They ultimately decided to withdraw unless their voices were heard.
 * - the Lebanese broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Luxembourgish broadcaster withdrew stating that the broadcaster were short on money and unable to pay the participation fee.
 * - the Moroccan broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Northern Irish broadcaster made a deal with the Irish broadcaster to consolidate their efforts into one single Irish participation in the 14th edition. The Northern Irish broadcaster made it clear that they would not return to the contest as this deal was still be upheld.