Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Fandom tends to complain about the Eurovision song contest tickets but have a look at the Sanremo 2026 tickets and let them prices sink in. it would truly be a once in a lifetime experience. Maybe I should start saving already - if only it would be easy to get those tickets even with those prices: You must register for a sort of a lottery to get a right to buy those tickets if you are lucky, months ahead..... First to fourth night stalls tickets 240 euro x night Stalls tickets for the grand final 875 euro Stalls ticket carnet 1.835 euro for five nights First to fourth night Gallery tickets 132 euro x night Gallery tickets for the grand final 430 euro Gallery ticket carnet 958 euro for five nights Note there's no discount for the five nights carnet.  Teatro Ariston, the venue of Sanremo music festival was built between 1953 and 1963 and ultra modern venua at that time it has now became small and unfit for huge tv productions and endless torn in side between RAI and the town o...

Perche Sanremore è Sanremo - because Sanremo is Sanremo, the old slogan has turned a bit sour this year. Sanremo the municipality and Rai the broadcaster have been discussion and trying to find a solution to various topics over the summer and now Rai has set an ultimatum for the decision so they can fully start focusing on the next edition of the Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo as it is fully named. To cut a long story short the latest break up started with a legal dispute regarding the direct assignment of the festival to the broadcaster as it was considered illegitimate by the regional administrative court of Liguria last December. Well, an open bid was launched for the 2026 edition but not surprisingly only Rai applied. Next the municipality of Sanremo demanded a financial increase for hosting the festival up to 6,5 million euros instead of the previous 5 million plus required Rai to produce additional tv-shows in Sanremo besides the five nights of 4-5 hours of live broad...

  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'...

RAI got the best viewing figures since Italy's return to the Eurovision song contest last night when the show was moved back to Rai1 and up to 15,1 million watched the show at least for a minute, and the average of 3,7 million watched it properly, that's +13% to last year! Call it Gabbamania but also RAI was giving bigger effort than ever with advertising the show beforehand.  The most watched moment was the ending of Gabbani's performance when 5,3 million Italians were clued to their television screen, and the biggest share (32,2%) when Portugal was declared the winner. Most importantly, Eurovision beat the worst enemy, Maria De Filippi's Amici! The show was also a social media success with 739.000 interactions on Twitter and Facebook - that's +259% people! And all that by about 200.000 individuals (+600%!).  The Director of Rai1, Andrea Fabiano who was present in Kyiv, declares he's very satisfied with the result and considered Eurovision a priority p...

If Australia did its best ratings so far, so did Italy. The country has had a rocky restart what comes to viewings since its comeback but it's been steadily growing and this year breaks all the previous records. The final has been followed in average by 3.292.000 viewers with a peak at 4.786.000 making it the third most watched programme of the evening right after major channels Rai1 and Canale5.  The first semifinal that was ment to be showed live for the first time but then cancelled and showed on Wednesday night at 11pm gathered anyway 212.000 with the peak at 314.000. The second semifinal where Italy voted got 792.000 and 1.092.000 peak.  Eurovision has been also a success on Twitter.  We didn't get to Torino 2016 but maybe 2017? Italy and RAI are ready. And meanwhile Il Volo will fly to European success..... 

Italian RAI has confirmed that it will broadcast the first semifinal on Rai5 channel just like last year, and the final itself stays on Rai2 where it will be broadcasted on HD this time. Fan favorite Federica Gentile will again comment the semifinal and in the final we have the duo Marco Ardemagni and Filippo Solibello again. This time they have time to prepaire themselves unlike last year when they replaced the kicked out commentators only a week before the event.  SMTV will broadcast as always both semifinals and the grand final with the commentary of Lia Fiorio and Gigi Restivo again. Both broadcasters don't send their commentators on the spot but will comment from the studios in San Marino and in Rome instead of Malmö Arena's tiny little boxes... Now only one question remains about both teams: Who will the spokespersons beand follow the foorsteps of Raffaella Carrá, Ivan Bacchi, Roberto Moretti, Nico Della Valle and Monica Fabbri?

If you want to get into some Italian Sanremo mood the songs of the newcomers selection are already online here . These 60 have been invited for a live audition and then the finalists will be chosen. Eight newcomers will take the stage of Teatro Ariston next February and  as said their songs are already there to be heard, unlike the 28 songs by the 14 Big artists who will present their songs only in the festival for the very first time.  RAI hasn't yet given any hint how the song and artist for Malmö will be chosen but it's worth remembering the 2011 entry Raphael Gualazzi's Follia d'amore came from the Sanremo newcomers selection, while Nina Zilli came from the Big category of 2012 but the song from her album.... Meanwhile RAI has a poll on it's Facebook page for fans to have their say who'd be the ideal represent.... (and Marcos Mengoni and Carta are leading)

Italy is cutting its costs as we all must know by now, and RAI is on the table now. They are to cut their funds for Sammarinese TV that RAI owns by 50%. The director of the channel, appointed directly from RAI's headquarters btw, Carmen Lasorella may return to RAI and the future of the channel is more or less uncertain if all this will happen in the end. And that puts in danger the participation in Eurovision as well. SMTV is trying to get new investors, maybe from Asia or Eastern Europe.