Just wondering the reason for Italy not entering this years ESC? 

Also, is there a limit of how many countries enter the semi-finals?

As an Australian, we don't get much news on the ESC - which is interesting considering how multicultural our country is.

Thanks Sergej.

I have heard of the San Remo contest.  I even watched a bit of it once.  Doesn't have the same atmosphere or kitsch feel to it.  To be honest, I thought it was rather boring in comparison to ESC.

Austria left the contest, acording to some news that i read, because “Eurovision theme is not acording to interest of Austria`s tv viewers anymore”, i also read that some other reason could be the bad results that Austria got on the lasts years, and that they are seriously thinking about quitting ESC permanently…

About Monaco, i read exactly the same as koji…Probably the same reason that why Luxembourg didn´t return anymore (I read about economic limitations too)…I wont be suprised if San Marino quits in a few years too…About Morroco, only participated once, and then they swore to never come back again, but i heard about a reincorporation in 2009…Lebon and Tunise, who tried to participate years ago, wont be able to do it if they keep refusing about don´t showing Israel performances, so their participation is almost improbable (i don´t see Israel quitting after a big ESC tradition)

But not all is quitting, Andorra keeps extremly interesed in ESC, even when they have reached very poor results, Also Slovakia is trying to return for 2009 (they are interested on neighbor votes) and so other countries that possibly gonna debut this year