Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The Sanremo 2026 rules have been revealed and there are no major changes to previous year. The festival takes place in Sanremo's Teatro Ariston as usual between February 24-28, 2026, after a long battle ( read more here ) a couple of weeks later than usual due to Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics earlier in February.  Carlo Conti might invite comedians Leonardo Pieraccioni and Giorgio Panariello as his co-hosts to this festival he says wil be his last, and there's a rumor Giorgia will be the main host next to Conti.  Carlo Conti is accepting and listening the entries until November 17, 2025 and the 26 Big will be revealed in due course, probably on  The songs must be in Italian (with minor bits in dialect or foreign language accepted) and max length is 3:30 (instead of 4:00 as previosuly), and for the Newcomers 3:00. The first night all 26 Big will perform their songs and are voted by Press center. The second night 13 Big will perform their song and are voted by Radio jury...

The 75th festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo kicks of its five night long adventure tonight. Carlo Conti returns as the main host and the artistic director after five years of Amadeus. Conti did the job already back in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and is set to return also for 2026. This year he will have a string of co-hosts during the five nights and tonight they are Antonella Clerici and Gerry Scotti - both popular household names and Rai's veteran tv-hosts and presenters and media personalities for decades already.  The voting for the first night is by the media jury or the jury of Press room, TV and web. A total of 1.487 of them. The Top-5 will be announced by the end of the night in random order. How the betting odds were after the media heard the songs you can check here . The songs are in Italian of course or not quite as we will have some Napoletan and Roman dialects thrown in as well.  The guest acts are Jovanotti, Raf (Eurovision 1987) and Mira Awad & Noa (Eurovis...

Apparently Carlo Conti couldn't decide so the 24 Big artists have become 30! Among them previous winners and Eurovision veterans Francesco Gabbani (2017), Massimo Ranieri (1988) and also Francesca Michielin (2016) and Achille Lauro (San Marino 2022). Other previous winners are Simone Cristicchi (2007) and Giorgia (1995), and among Newcomers Rocco Hunt (2014) and Clara (2024). Eurovision fan favorites Elodie, Coma_Cose, Irama and The Kolors are also back. If Massimo Ranieri (73) is back for the seventh time also another real veteran returns (finally): Marcella Bella (72). This will be her 10th Sanremo.  From last year we have again Clara, Rose Villain, The Kolors and Irama. For the first time ever we have in competition i Sanremo Brunori Sas, Emis Killa, Sarah Toscano (latest Amici winner), Dj and producer Shablo with rappers Gué and Tormento, Joan Thiele, Luco Corsi and Tony Effe. The hot gossip is both Tony Effe and Fedez are in, as Fedez recently divorced Chiara Ferragni, Sanremo...

Amadeus has found a way to bring previous hosts to Sanremo Giovani - as the professional jury. Among them legendary talent scout Pippo Baudo who has discovered more new talent than anyone in Italy during the 20 festivals he has hosted and acted as the artistic director.  He has discovered among others Al Bano, Eros Ramazzotti, Lorella Cuccarini, Laura Pausini, Andrea Bocelli, Giorgia, Michelle Hunziker, Gianluca Grignani, Gigi D'Alessio and Anna Tatangelo and therefor there's a saying  "L'ho inventato io...." (I have invented him/her!) that refers to his talent. He gets company from Carlo Conti who also did a great job with his 3 consecutive festivals, Paolo Bonolis who would like to make Sanremo more Eurovisionlike and bring it out of tiny Teatro Ariston, Piero Chiambretti and Antonella Clerici, the godmother of Il Volo. So these five will decide who will get the tickets to the festival next February on December 19 in a show hosted by ever youthful Marco ...

The 70th Sanremo festival will take place in Teatro Ariston on February 4-8, 2020. That is all that is known from the meeting between RAI and the city of Sanremo officials earlier this month. Since Claudio Baglioni stepped down as the artistic director and the host of the past two very succesful editions no one seems to know who will be given this job, or will there be separate artistic director and host. Many names have been rumored, denied and dismissed as the possible artistic director from the return of Carlo Conti to Mina to Andrea Bocelli and lately Lucio Presta, while for the hosting job Amadeus and Alessandro Cattalan have been the most gossiped ones but Baglioni could also be an unlikely but possible last minute call to act as both again, or the eternal other choices Fabio Fazio or Paolo Bonolis. Bonolis however has often stated he would do it once Sanremo moves out of the tiny theater and he could make it a big scale show like Eurovision in some arena. Meanwhile Sanremo ...

Claudio Baglioni has taken over from Carlo Conti and quite a few things in Sanremo will change, but not the link to Eurovision. The rules again say the winner of the Big category is the first choice for Eurovision song contest for Italy, if he/she/they only want to. So far the only one not accepting the job has been Stadio, who gladly handed the opportunity to runner up Francesca Michielin. Things that change include the dropping of the eliminations. All 20 Big, and 8 Govani aka Newcomers will reach the final. Also the Friday night's cover special is gone. Instead it's back to the Duets, already used previously. The Big can invited other artists to duet with their entries and rearrange the whole song.  The Italians fans doen't seem to be very optimistic in Baglioni's capacity of finding Eurovision worthy artists and songs, and are pretty afraid it'll be something very old and dated instead.... We'll see.  Here's how the nights will be and the voti...

  So it seems. According Italian media but still waiting or the official confirmation. Besides being the Artistic Director Claudio Baglioni will also be hosting the 68th festival of Sanremo in February. But he won't be alone but will have a different co-host(s) every night, and most likely they all will return for the Grand final.  If I have some doubts about Baglioni as Artistic Director - makes me think that his musical taste and line of selection will be more like: "Al Banos in, Baby Ks out" - but I hope he will surprise me and have a valid and varied cast of old and new artists, very popular and some less popular ones to create a nice mix of ballads and uptempo.  To follow up Carlo Conti's three succesful years won't be easy. Not only did Conti present a string of hits and worthy Eurovision entries (nothing has been officially yet said about the Sanremo winner once again going to Eurovision, but Rai has confirmed Lisbon 2018), he also managed to inc...

  The Sanremo soop opera has a new twist. Out of nowhere pops up Claudio Baglioni as the Artistic director, aka Björkman of the situation. This blogger among others had the confirmed idea Carlo Conti had accepted to be The One this year, too, but not to host it. Weird. As for the hosts the names have been many and none have been confirmed, and while Rai apparently insisted still on Conti who has refuses all proposals. The latest idea seems to be a group of hosts, one or more for each night - all then uniting for the final night. If the edition will be a flop, no one's to blame but a shared guilt, so to speak. One of the names now is Ludovia Comello who participated this year with Il cielo non mi basta , a pre-festival favorite for Eurofans - until we heard the song and her vocals. Claudio Baglioni is one of the most succesful Italian singer-songwriters with sales over 55 million all over the world. A total of 35 album, 11 of them #1s.  He has never participated in...

  It's almost September and Rai still hasn't decided nor let us know who will be hosting the Sanremo festival next year. If you think it's not important who it is, you are wrong. It is crucial. For the viewing figures and most of all for us following - would you like to spent five loooooong nights with someone you don't like or can't stand? Didn't think so. Sanremo already is a five long nights affair and if spent in a wrong company it just seem to drag on ever longer.... After various Mika s, Antonella Clerici s, Massimo Ranieri s and lastly Amadeus after Fabio Fazio and Fabrizio Frizzi are certainly out (phew) the past days has been all about speculation it will be Carlo Conti again for the fourth year in a row. The rumor is he will have next to him another figure from competing channel, Mediaset's Silvia Toffanin . If this year he had the Queen of Mediaset Maria De Filippi, Toffanin is the wife of Silvio Berlusconi's son and Mediaset'...

The gossip mill of the possible host for the next Sanremo festival is summer's favorite topic and it's heating up ahead of the RAI's decision and announcement. After two years with Fabio Fazio and three with highly succesful Carlo Conti RAI needs something special to secure the newfound popularity of the festival.  In past days veteran hosts Fiorello and Amadeus have been named, as well as Fiorello's actor brother Beppe . Fazio was mentioned earlier but it seems now his new contract, even with the option for Sanremo included, will be just too busy for the 2018 edition. Paolo Bonolis has said apparently yes, but with conditons that won't be doable for the 2018 (and his schedule with the new show Music is also very tight): new venue, new modernized project altogether. MIKA has been in the air since the last notes of Occidentali's Karma echoed away in Teatro Ariston this spring, and despite him commenting he would never do it, his name is insistent: w...