Turkey's Hadise qualifies for Eurovision finals

Hadise, Turkey's contestant for the annual Eurovision Song Contest, qualified for the finals on Tuesday. The 23-year-old Belgian-born Turkish singer and songwriter will take to the stage to present her song “Düm Tek Tek" as the 18th contestant in Saturday's 54th Eurovision in Moscow, where she will face hopefuls from 24 other countries. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Israel, Iceland, Portugal, Malta, Armenia, Finland, Sweden and Romania also made the final. The second semifinal round will be held tonight to decide the lineup for the 25-song final. Eurovision is one of Europe's most-watched shows, with an audience of at least 100 million viewers, according to Reuters. Turkey has won the contest only once in the contest's history, in 2003 with Sertab Erener's "Everyway That I Can." In related news, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) plans to launch its newest TV station, TRT Music, in June. TRT decided to begin broadcasting TRT Music in response to audience demand after TRT 4, which had focused on Turkish folk and classical music, was changed to TRT Children, airing only children's programming during the day. The new station will broadcast Turkish folk and classical music during primetime, as well as pop, rock, hip hop, Sufi and foreign music. It is described as a music station rather than a music video station.