Big Changes For Italy's Sanremo 2019

The 2018 Eurovision has not long finished, and countries are already looking ahead to next year's competition. Italy being one of them. The broadcaster for Italy, RAI has announced that the world famous Sanremo music festival will have some major changes next year. With these in the pipe line it is hoped that the changes will freshen up one of the world's oldest music festivals.

The national broadcaster has revealed that in February's edition of the show, they intend to remove the "big" and "nuove proposte" categories. These has been around for some years, and encorporated new, and established artists. It is hoped, with the abolition of these two categories, that the festival will be an equal opportunity for all artists.

The artistic director for the festival, Claudio Baglioni has been clear on how things should be done, and stressed the importance of finding new Italian talent. In doing so, he has created a new show, "Sanremo Giovani" that will be held in December of this year. The new festival will see young performers under 36 compete for two places for the main Sanremo Festival.

The viewers will get to see the artists over two nights, at an earlier time slot, that will allow the Italian public to get to know the young performers better. The two artists are expected to be announced, and chosen on the 20th and 21st December 2018. It is also expected that there will be over 20 artists competing for this honour.

These two artists will then become part of the main Sanremo Festival that is expected to air in February 2019, to find Italy's next Eurovision star.

The 2019 edition of Sanremo will be the 69th edition, and since Italy re-joined the contest back in 2011, the winner of the festival is generally given the first choice of representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. If not the broadcaster then finds the next appropriate singer to represent them.

Since it's renaissance back in the contest in 2011, the country's formula of using the Sanremo festival has been very successful in bringing Italy some impressive results. In 8 participations, they have only been out of the top 10 twice.

This year Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro were chosen from the festival to represent Italy, with their song, "Non mi aveter fatto niente". The duo finished 17th with the juries, but the public voted them their third favourite, and propelled them into the top five of another successful Eurovision season.

Could the new system warrant a potential winner for Italy? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

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