Sanremo Music Festival 2024

Presenters

On 24 March 2022, a month after the final of the 2022 edition, RAI officially confirmed Amadeus as the presenter of the 73rd and 74th editions of the Sanremo Music Festival,^[5][6] announcing in June 2023 that this would be his last time hosting the event. Each of the nights of the festival was co-hosted, respectively, by: Marco Mengoni, the winner of the previous edition, who additionally performed his 2013 and 2023 winning entries "L'essenziale" and "Due vite" as well as other songs from his repertoire; Giorgia, who additionally performed her breakthrough song "E poi" and her 1995 winning entry "Come saprei", as well as other songs from her repertoire; Teresa Mannino; Lorella Cuccarini; and Rosario Fiorello, who was originally meant to be a guest on that night.^{[7][8][9][10]} The competing entries on each of the second and third nights were also introduced by the non-competing artists alongside the hosts.^[11]

In addition, PrimaFestival, the introductory segment aired before each of the nights and during the opening red carpet, was hosted by Paola & Chiara, Mattia Stanga and Daniele Cabras.^[12]

Format changes

On 19 June 2023, Amadeus announced to have proposed changes in the rules of the contest, as well as in the organisation of the traditional five evening shows.^[13] The complete rules were published on 10 July.^{[citation needed]}

Changes affected the number of the entries (increased from 28 to 30), the arrangement of the five shows (with the first night being organised as the third night of previous editions), the cover performance show (which was opened to songs from any time and place) and the jury system (as explained below).^[11][14]

Voting

Voting occurred again through the combination of three methods:

• Public televoting, carried out via landline and mobile phone.
• Jury of the press room, TV and web.
• Jury of the radio, detached from the second one and replacing the demoscopic jury from previous editions.

Their voting was articulated as follows:

• First night: all of the entrants were judged by the jury of the press room, TV and web.
• Second night: half of the entrants were judged through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and the jury of the radio.
• Third night: the other half of the entrants were judged through a 50/50 split system by means of televoting and the jury of the radio.
• Fourth night: the covers were judged through a split system by means of the televoting (34%) and the two juries (33% each). The results obtained on each evening that far were then combined.
• Fifth night: as in previous years, the entrants were judged by televoting alone, to be added up to the results obtained that far; ultimately, a final voting round (again a sum of televoting at 34% and the two juries at 33% each) was held among the top five, which determined the winner.

For the first time, only the top five entries in each of the first four nights' partial rankings were revealed during the show, and only the complete ranking before and after the final was made public.^[14][15]

Sanremo Giovani 2023

For the third time in a row, the Newcomers' section was not included in the Festival, with the Sanremo Giovani selection directly decreeing three places reserved in the Big Artists' section. The twelve artists competing in the format were selected through two separate contests: standard section and Area Sanremo.^[16]

First night

All of the competing artists performed their songs.^[11]

Second night

Fifteen of the competing artists performed their songs. Each of them was introduced on stage by one of the non-competing artists.^[11]

Third night

The remaining fifteen competing artists performed their songs. Each of them was introduced on stage by one of the non-competing artists.^[11]

Fourth night

The artists each performed an Italian or international song from the past (or a medley thereof), duetting with one or more guest performers.^[11]

Fifth night

All of the artists performed their songs one final time, with the top five moving on to the final round of voting.^[11]

Local broadcast

Rai 1 and Rai Radio 2 brought the official broadcasts of the festival in Italy, with the latter featuring a special programming throughout the festival week and live commentary of the shows by Ema Stokholma and Gino Castaldo [it].^[69] The five evenings were also streamed online via the broadcaster's official online platform RaiPlay.

International broadcast

Outside Italy, RAI airs the festival on its international channel Rai Italia and makes the RaiPlay broadcast available in all member countries of the European Broadcasting Union, since the festival, serving as the Italian national final for the Eurovision Song Contest, is broadcast on the Eurovision network; the live broadcast of the 2024 edition, as well as the availability of related videoclips, was expanded worldwide [it].^[69][70] In addition, the event was aired on a number of local broadcasters across different countries:

More information Country, Broadcaster(s) ...

International broadcasters of the Sanremo Music Festival 2024

Country	Broadcaster(s)	Channel(s)	Show(s)	Commentator(s)	Refs
Albania	RTSH	RTSH 2	Nights 1–4	Andri Xhahu and Elona Jaçellari	[71][72]
		RTSH 1	Final
Canada[c]	ICI Télévision		All shows[d]	—N/a	[71][73]
Moldova	TRM	Moldova 1	All shows		[73][74]
Montenegro	RTCG	TVCG 2	All shows	Nebojša Šofranac[citation needed]	[73][75]
Romania	TVR	TVR 1	All shows	Bogdan Stănescu and Kyrie Mendél	[71][76]
Spain	RTVE	RTVE Play	Final	Daniel Borrego Escot and Giuseppe Di Bella	[71][77]
Ukraine	Suspilne	Suspilne Kultura	Final[d]	Timur Miroshnychenko	[71][78]
United Kingdom	GlitterBeam		Final	Michael Dalzell and Eugenio Ceriello	[71][79]

Close

Ratings

With an average share of 74.1% and a total of 14.301 million viewers, the 2024 final achieved the highest viewership values since 1995 and 1998, respectively.^[81]

False bomb alerts

During a gala organised by RadioMediaset [it] at Villa Nobel on 5 February on the occasion of the opening of the festival week, the local police received an anonymous call alerting about the presence of a bomb, and the venue was evacuated. However, the authorities failed to find any signs of a bomb threat. Most of the competing artists were reportedly present at the event.^[82][83] The following day, a similar alert for the Teatro Ariston also proved to be unjustified and the caller was identified shortly after; he confessed to intentionally giving a false alarm [it] in order to disrupt the competition, and was scheduled for prosecution.^[84]

Legal actions

On 7 February, RAI's CEO Roberto Sergio announced that the broadcaster would take disciplinary measures against one of its journalists following a "denigratory tweet" directed at the physical appearance of contestant BigMama.^[85]

Following John Travolta's guest appearance on 7 February, when his shoes were prominently featured in the televised images, Italian consumers association Codacons [it] filed a complaint against RAI for aggravated fraud and covert advertising, as the actor had an advertising contract with the footwear brand he was wearing; the broadcaster opened an internal investigation.^[86][87] In addition to this, controversy arose surrounding Travolta's skit on that night, where he was seen performing the "Chicken Dance" next to Amadeus and Fiorello, and which was widely received as "humiliating" and "discomforting" for the actor; Travolta ultimately denied consent over the use of the related video sequence, forcing RAI to remove it as an excerpt from RaiPlay.^[87][88]

Calls for Gaza war ceasefire

During the festival, contestants Dargen D'Amico and Ghali made statements calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war. With the Ghali publicly calling to "stop the genocide" after his performance in the final and D'Amico stating: “there are children under the bombs, without water and without food. Our silence is co-responsibility.”^[89] In a tweet, the Israeli ambassador to Italy, Alon Bar, accused Ghali of "exploiting the festival's stage to spread hate and provocations", adding that the musical event could have been instead an occasion to express solidarity with the victims of the Nova music festival massacre.^[90][89]While the statement by Ghali was viewed by some as controversial, it also received praise by the president of the Association of Palestinians in Italy, Mohammad Hannoun, during a demonstration in the artist's home city of Milan Hannoun thanked the rapper "for his clear words against extermination".^[90] The following day, live on the show Domenica in hosted by Mara Venier, Ghali responded to Bar's accusation by recalling his long personal history of speaking out on such topics, pointing out that "this thing has been going on for a while" and claiming that "terror politics" prevents people from freely calling for peace. Shortly after, Venier read out a statement by RAI's CEO Roberto Sergio with an expression of his "heartfelt and staunch" solidarity to "the people of Israel and the Jewish community".^[91]

In response, pro-Palestinian demonstrations broke out between 13 and 17 February outside RAI's production centres of Naples, where a number of protesters were injured in clashes with the police;^[92] Turin [it], where glass bottles, eggs and smoke bombs were thrown;^[93] and Milan [it];^[94] as well as outside the broadcaster's general headquarters in Rome^[95] and its regional offices in Bari [it], Bologna [it], Bolzano [it], Cagliari [it], Cosenza, Florence [it], Genoa [it], Palermo [it], Perugia [it], Pescara [it], Trento [it], Trieste [it] and Venice [it].^[e] Sergio was preemptively put under guard following threats.^[106]

Amadeus responded to Bar's comments by stating that "any war in the world must be stopped" and adding that the competing artists sent messages of "peace, freedom of thought, racial equality, values", in line with the "inclusive" spirit of the festival.^[107] Employees at RAI released a joint statement distancing themselves from Sergio's "use of corporate media to convey [his] personal ideas and political or human affiliations", judging his message as "one-sided" and "kneeled to Israeli diplomacy"; the statement quoted D'Amico and Ghali's original calls.^[108] Lega Nord senator Alessandro Morelli, serving as governmental undersecretary, suggested the implementation of banning orders for artists who make "political propaganda" on public television, similarly to the ones in place under Italian law for people who disrupt sporting events [it];^[109][110] following heavy criticism, including by Sanremo entrant Fiorella Mannoia,^[109] Morelli stated that his proposal was meant as a "provocation", while defending his position over the artists' use of public platforms.^[111]