Carlo Conti, in his fourth stint as artistic director and host of Sanremo, is tweaking the rules of the festival, not only correcting the voting mechanism, which had raised much controversy in recent years, but also returning to the old management of the New Proposals, who will once again compete in a separate category.
These are some of the new features for the next Sanremo that emerge from the new Regulations of the 75th Italian Song Festival, published online.
Conti starts again from four, after his 3 winning Festivals, those of the 2015, 2016 and 2017 editions. For the new proposals there will be 4 artists in the competition, three from Sanremo Giovani and one chosen from the Area Sanremo competition 2024 edition . Then the number of Bigs will change, which will be 24, and the voting of the cover night, (the one in which the Champions in the competition will be called to re-interpret a song chosen from the Italian or international repertoire) which will not influence the final victory of the Festival, determining only the winning cover. Furthermore, on the final night, when the voting for the 5 finalists will reopen, the votes obtained by the 5 singers up to that moment will not be reset, but the last voting session will be added to those obtained during the previous nights (excluding only the cover night).
There will be 3 Juries in total: the Televote will have a "weight" of 34%, the Press Room, TV and Web Jury of 33% as well as that of the Radio Jury. The new regulation also provides that as artistic director of Sanremo, Carlo Conti will have to "share the editorial approach and the related choices with the Prime Time Entertainment Department" where "the Festival Organization office is established, composed of Rai staff, responsible for managing the project of the 75th Italian Song Festival".
Also with respect to the management of the evenings, the legislation also specifies that "the division of the artists into the evenings and the order of performance of the songs, as well as any decision regarding the organization and realization of the Evenings of Sanremo 2025, is the exclusive responsibility of the Artistic Director and Rai". In any case, "up until 18 February 2025 inclusive, the Winner of Sanremo 2025 will not be able to participate in television programs broadcast by broadcasters other than Rai".
