San Marino in the Eurovision Song Contest

Selection process

Prior to the 2018 contest, SMRTV had selected their Eurovision Song Contest entry internally for all of their appearances in the contest. Their first experience with a national final type process came in 2018 where SMRTV opted to organise the online talent show 1in360 to select the entry.^[21] After a brief return to an internal selection for 2019,^[22] the 2020 contest saw the nation's entry selected through Digital Battle. As part of that process, 2011 entrant Senhit was selected internally, while her song was selected through an online poll.^[23] For 2021, SMRTV continued their cooperation with Senhit, returning to an internal selection for the year's contest.^[18] The 2022 contest saw SMRTV opting to organise a singing competition entitled Una voce per San Marino to select their entry, returning a public process for a third time.^[24] Following the success of the first edition, the Sammarinese Secretary of State for Tourism, Postal Services, Economic Cooperation and the World Expo Federico Pedini Amati announced that the format had been confirmed for 2023.^[25] In August 2023, Amati confirmed that a third edition was planned to select the nation's 2024 entry,^[26] and the following October, the selection was confirmed until 2025.^[27]

Voting

Voting at the Eurovision Song Contest typically consists of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent jury deliberation. From 2009 to 2015, the jury and public votes were combined and presented as one.^[28] San Marino does not organise a televote, however, due to their use of Italy's phone network, and because the small number of potential televoters would not meet the minimum voting threshold set by the EBU.^[29] As such, the Sammarinese vote was based solely on their jury during these contests.^[28][30] For the 2016 contest, the EBU introduced a new voting system where the jury and televoting points would be presented separately. If no televote was available, they would instead simulate a composite score using average televoting results from an undisclosed pre-selected group of countries.^[31] SMRTV objected to this format, particularly because the EBU would not divulge which countries they would use to create the result and because half of San Marino's points would be determined by others.^[30][32] For the 2017 contest, SMRTV proposed to enable televoting by Sammarinese residents through the use of a statistically representative panel of viewers, similar to the process used at the time in Italy's Sanremo Music Festival. The panel would watch the shows of the contest live and vote during the normal televoting period; their vote would then be used as the country's televote. If any issues arose, the old format could be used as a backup.^[33][34] However, the EBU denied this request in March 2017, and the rules had since remained unchanged in this regard.^[35][36][37]

At the 2022 contest, San Marino's jury vote was found to have irregular voting patterns during the second semi-final, along with five other nations. Consequently, these countries were given substitute aggregated jury scores for both the second semi-final and the final, calculated from the corresponding jury scores of countries with historically similar voting patterns as determined by the pots for the semi-final allocation draw for that contest.^[38][39] Their televoting scores were unaffected. The Flemish broadcaster VRT later reported that the juries involved had made agreements to vote for each other's entries to secure qualification to the final.^[40]

For the 2023 contest, the voting system underwent several changes, including a return of full televoting to determine the qualifiers from the semi-finals.^[41] In the event that a country cannot deliver a televoting result in a semi-final, a backup jury result would be used.^[42] This change allowed for the Sammarinese vote in the semi-finals to be based solely on its jury, however, the procedure of using calculated scores would still be used in the event that the Sammarinese jury is disqualified.^[43][44]

Heads of delegation

Each participating broadcaster in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the performers, songwriters, composers, and backing vocalists, among others.^[59]

Jury members

Each participating broadcaster assembles a jury panel consisting of music industry professionals for the semi-finals and final of the Eurovision Song Contest, ranking all entries except their own. The juries' votes constitute 50% of the overall result alongside televoting.^[67] The modern incarnation of jury voting was introduced beginning with the 2009 contest.^[68]

Commentators and spokespeople

For the show's broadcast on SMRTV, various commentators have provided comment on the contest in the local language. At the contest, after all points are calculated, the presenters of the show call upon each voting broadcaster to invite each respective spokesperson to announce the results of their vote.^[83] In 2014, San Marino RTV also provided an English commentary for their internet streaming, with John Kennedy O'Connor and Jamarie Milkovic.^[84] O'Connor reprised this role for both the 2015 and 2016 contests.^[85]