Festival da Canção


Festival da Canção or Festival RTP da Canção is the name given to the national festival produced and broadcast by Rádio e Televisão de Portugal to select for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was first held in 1964.
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History

Like most music festivals in isolated countries, the Festival da Canção was a very important event for the still-incipient Portuguese music industry of the 1960s and 1970s. Left-wing composers and writers would try to squeeze subversive lyrics in the contest, with great effect. After the 1974 revolution, incidentally code-triggered by that year's winner being played on national radio, Portugal became increasingly open to foreign culture, thus deeming the festival as a lesser musical event, dominated by below-standard pop songs with little or no impact in the industry, although remaining a popular TV show.
The 1990s saw a recovery of the contest's image, then considered a viable means for a new singer to start a career. Internationally acclaimed Portuguese singers Dulce Pontes and Sara Tavares made their debut in the 1991 and 1994 editions, respectively. Many other unknown performers like Lucia Moniz and Anabela leaped to national stardom after taking the RTP trophy.
After reaching an all-time high sixth place in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996, the festival steadily declined from then on. In 2000, the winner, "Sonhos mágicos" performed by Liana, did not participate in that year's Eurovision, as Portugal had been relegated from the contest after two consecutive poor showings in 1998 and 1999; this would be the second time in the festival's history that the winner did not participate in Eurovision. In 2002, the Festival da Canção was placed on hiatus, contradicting the tradition of staging a festival even without participating in that year's Eurovision Song Contest, as happened in 2000 and 1970. From 2001, the festival saw consecutive changes of format. 2005 saw RTP commissioning a song for Eurovision, rather than organizing some kind of competition for select a national entry.
Since 2006, RTP has settled for a traditional multi-singer, multi-composer competitive format, claiming the memory of older contests and songs. Producers have since been invited to come up with songs, lyrics and singers, and the 2007 result with Sabrina almost making it to the Eurovision final, gave RTP the necessary confidence to maintain the current format. In 2009, an open call for songs was held by RTP, abolishing the invited producers method, with online voting deciding the qualifiers to the televised final from a list of 24 songs, with 12 competing in the live contest.
More changes to the format of the contest were made in 2010. Two semi-finals and a final are now held to select the winner. Foreign composers were once again permitted to compete. Since 2017, different languages are allowed to compete.
The 2020 edition of the festival marked the third time in its history where the winner was unable to participate in Eurovision, as the contest itself was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the 2026 edition, the rule obliging the winner to represent Portugal at Eurovision was replaced with a provision stating that the winner is merely "eligible" to participate, effectively separating Festival da Canção from the Eurovision entry selection process. Additionally, it was decided that the winner of the previous edition would have the ability to select one artist to participate in the festival.

Hosts

;1960s
;1970s
;1980s
;1990s
;2000s
;2010s
;2020s
  • 2020:
  • *Jorge Gabriel and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira
  • *José Carlos Malato and Sónia Araújo
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim
  • 2021:
  • *Jorge Gabriel and Sónia Araújo
  • *José Carlos Malato and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim
  • 2022:
  • *Jorge Gabriel and Sónia Araújo
  • *José Carlos Malato and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim
  • 2023:
  • *José Carlos Malato and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira
  • *Jorge Gabriel and Sónia Araújo
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim
  • 2024:
  • *José Carlos Malato and Tânia Ribas de Oliveira
  • *Jorge Gabriel and Sónia Araújo
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim
  • 2025:
  • *Jorge Gabriel and José Carlos Malato
  • *Tânia Ribas de Oliveira and Sónia Araújo
  • *Filomena Cautela and Vasco Palmeirim

Venues

Semi-finals

Since 2017, all semi-finals have been hosted at the RTP Television Center in Lisbon.