Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Tonight's the night and the 69th Festival della Canzone Italiana in Sanremo starts and goes on until Saturday night when we will know the winner, and hopefully also the one going to Tel Aviv and Eurovison song contest 2019. A major change this year is there is only one category as the Newcomers were sorted out already in December in a festival for them alone and two winners got the ticket to the Big category: Mahmood and Einar.  Tonight's guest stars are Giorgia, Andrea Bocelli with his son Matteo, last year's host actor Pierfrancesco Favino, actor Claudio Santamaria and actor/director/writer/musician Rocco Papaleo. The hosts next to Claudio Baglioni this year are fabulous comedian, actress, impersonator Virginia Raffaele and actor, presenter, comedian, writer Claudio Bisio.  All 24 artists will perform their song tonight for the first time. The voting is 30% press center, 30% demoscopic jury and 40% televote. A notable mileston will happen tonight as well: Anna T...

When Claudio Baglioni was announced the Musical director for Sanremo 2018, as well as the host, many were sceptical - this blogger included - but after the record breaking success of the edition it was only logical Rai would want him again. And after negotiations since February the deal is done and oops, he'll do it again in 2019. Most likely his winning format will stay aka more music, less talk and endless guests that had nothing to do with music. In fact he pretty much zeroed that in 2018. If I could say one wish: a little younger and modern acts please. Just a little. No one needs rappers, it is proven in 2018.  This year he had fabulous Michelle Hunziger and equally fabulous Pierfrancesco Favino as his co-hosts. The question is: How can he top that ? And will he host again?  Rai is yet to give any further information regarding the 69th festival such as dates etc. 

  The success continued obviously also on the final night when 58,3% of Italian television viewers chose Teatro Ariston with Claudio Baglioni, Michelle Hunziker and Pierfrancesco Favino and their guests Laura Pusini and Fiorella Mannoia and the rest. That's an average of 12.125.000, slightly less than last year but bringing the average of all five nights to recordbreaking  52,16% . The peak was 76,57% when the winner wa announced. Many had doubts that they could keep up with Carlo Conti's last three highly succesful editions - he was the only one who managed to do better every year and top himself - but actually they beat him and score the best figures since forever. Below are the average share and the presenters in the near past.  A lot of praise also for Michelle Hunziker, the real presence on stage and her sidekick Pierfrancesco Favino, who conquered the viewers as well. Claudio Baglioni himself was more like a father figure keeping eye on his kids and singing...

Tonight's the second night in Sanremo. The opening might scored a share of 52,1%, or 11.603.000,  the highest since 2005 so this edition of Baglioni has started with a triumph! The peak was 17,2 million when Baglioni sung with Fiorello. The pressure is high to continue as strong..... There has been also a bit of a drama, when Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Mori's song is a bit too similar to a sing Silenzio from 2015, that even took part in Sanremo Giovani 2016. And there's more: one of the writers, Febo, is behind that song, too. But case closed: their song won't be disqualified as it has new lyrics and it has been altered and apparently Febo had asked Rai to remove it from the site already before etc. Now it's apparently gone. Last night. Just like that. UPDATE: Their entry has been suspended while waiting for final decision. They won't be performing tonight as scheduled! This blogger enjoyed last night a lot. Beautiful stage, fantastic graphics, not too m...

  The 68th Festival della canzone Italiana aka Sanremo kicks off tonight with the first of its five evenings. There are several changes to the format this year and one of them is no Big artists will be eliminated this year so any of them could end up in Lisbon 2018 Eurovision. Claudio Baglioni is the new Artistic Director and the Dictator and he will be hosting the show with Michele Hunziker and actor Pieerfrancesco Favino . As always the evenings will be also filled with countless guests from all areas of life: music, movies, comedy,  ... even if Baglioni promises it's all about music and less media fuss and television friendly choices. And guess what? Sanremo gets spider cam!!! Yes, and other technologies like pre-programmed cameras and video effects etc used in Eurovision already for years so expect a bit familiar and not so stiff camera work in Sanremo this time :-) Then we will have living Sanremo legend Pippo Baudo making an appearance (unless he got too angry o...