Lied van Liedjes 19

This was the nineteenth Lied van Liedjes to be held. Semi-Finals would occur on the 25th, 26th and 27th February 2002 on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Golden Duels / Second Chance night would occur on Friday, 1st March 2002 with the final happening on Saturday, 2nd March 2002.

Organization
Rome was internally chosen to host and a vote was not held. Rumours appeared that speculated Florence was originally intended to host but had to withdraw their bid late due to chaos. This would explain the week delay in the contest and the finals overlapping into March.

Adelardo Garibaldi, a very experienced director and coordinator returned as coordinator for the Italian edition. Hans Weiss remained on as Executive Producer. Annie MacLoad was originally intended to be director but couldn't attend to scheduling conflicts and had no real input on the show, thus this is the first contest without a director. Due to the high influx of countries - 51 countries expected to participate - the participation fee was increased temporarily to try and dissuade smaller nations from taking part.

Contest
Following on from the previous edition, the 19th edition would maintain 3 semi-finals and the Golden Duels. Five countries, the top 5 from the previous edition, would automatically qualify. This left 42 countries to be placed equally across each semi-final, leading to 14 countries per semi. Six countries from each would qualify to the final. Two would enter the Golden Duels. The countries duelling would be shuffled and the winner based purely on televotes would advance. This gives 18 countries qualifying from the Semi-Finals, 3 countries qualifying from the Golden Duels, and 5 automatically qualifying countries, allowing the final to have a total of 26 participants.

Turkey, who would've automatically qualified to the final, withdrew from the edition and so the 6th place, Sweden, will automatically qualify in it's place.

Other Countries
Due to conflicts with Israel, the following countries withdrew: The following countries didn't return due to conflicts with Israel: The following countries withdrew due to financial reasons: The following countries did not participate:
 * - the Azeri broadcaster withdrew due to conflicts with Israel and fear of being marginalised due to Turkey's non-participation. They also protested the new participant fee increase.
 * - the Iraqi broadcaster withdrew due to conflicts with Israel. They provided no more information.
 * - the Turkish broadcaster withdrew due to conflicts with Israel. They provided no more information.
 * - the Algerian broadcaster withdrew due to conflicts with Israel. They provided no more information.
 * - the Egyptian broadcaster withdrew due to conflicts with Israel. They provided no more information.
 * - the Lebanese broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Libyan broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Moroccan broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Syrian broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Tunisian broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants.
 * - the Luxembourgish broadcaster withdrew stating that the broadcaster were unable to pay the newly increased participation fee.
 * - the Maltese broadcaster withdrew stating that the broadcaster were unable to pay the newly increased participation fee.
 * - the Northern Irish stated they withdrew due to the increased participation fee. A new deal was made for just one edition, with options to be renewed, where Northern Ireland would again participate under the banner of the 'Ireland'
 * - the Sanmarinese broadcaster withdrew stating that the broadcaster were unable to pay the newly increased participation fee.
 * - the Welsh broadcaster withdrew stating that the broadcaster were unable to pay the newly increased participation fee, however, a Welsh artist performed under England.
 * - the Gibraltar broadcaster made no official statement. They did not appear on the final list of participants. It is believed they conflicted with Spain
 * - the Malaysian broadcaster, who is participating in the Commonwealth spin-off tournament, appealed to the contest to allow their participation despite being in East Asia. Rumours mentioned a possible Singapore and Malaysia duo debut in the contest but they did not appear on the final list of participants.