Portugal 2019 🇵🇹 What are the changes in Festival da Canção?

Fotis Konstantopoulos (Greece)

PORTUGAL – On the second half of February and early March, the semi finals and the final of Festival da Canção will take place as RTP kicks off the national festival through which the country will decide its participation for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.

The 2018 Eurovision host country is the 30th one, confirming its participation for Tel Aviv. Portugal’s 51st participation in Eurovision will be decided through Festival da Canção which has some changes this year.

• There will be 16 semi finalists, eight in each one.
• Four acts from each semi final will proceed to the final.
• Last year winner’s privilege to select a composer for Festival da Canção, is scrapped
• 14 composers will be invited by RTP
• There are no limits in the production and the lyrics of the submitted songs.
• One composer will be decided through Antena 1 show “Mastre Class”
• One more composer will be decided through submissions to RTP by October 31st.
• In the semi finals the jury will prevail to the public
• In the final the public will prevail over the jury vote
• In the semi finals there will be a professional jury
• In the final there will bee seven regional juries