Sanremo at a Crossroads: Shaping the Future of Italy’s Iconic Music Festival

Less than a month has passed since Olly was crowned the winner of the 75th Sanremo Festival, and already there’s an atmosphere reminiscent of a prime-time drama gearing up for next year. As if scripted for television, the Genoa Tribunal has declared the direct award to the Italian public broadcaster, Rai, as the festival’s organiser to be illegal. Meanwhile, with the State Council expected to rule on Rai’s appeal on 22 May, the Sanremo City Council has swiftly approved a resolution to launch a procedure to select the channel that will organise and broadcast the festival live from 2026 to 2028, with a possible two-year extension.

According to sources from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the procedure will be split into two phases. In the first phase, a public announcement will be issued to identify potential candidates. In the second phase, the final terms of the agreement will be negotiated directly with the selected group. Participation will be open exclusively to national free-to-air broadcasters that run a generalist channel and have proven experience in organising major events. This opens the door for private operators like Mediaset or Warner Bros Discovery—whose recent acquisition of Amadeus, the artistic director and presenter of Sanremo from 2020 to 2024, has raised eyebrows—as well as for public operators such as Rai, while excluding streaming giants like Netflix or Amazon.

Rai, however, has its own plan B.

This decision has sparked considerable anger at Rai, especially since the close relationship between the public broadcaster and the Sanremo City Council was very evident during the last edition of the festival. What would Rai do if it lost the festival? Since the call for bids pertains solely to the live broadcast of the Sanremo Festival—which would mean losing control of the “Festival della Canzone Italiana” brand—the broadcaster could well decide to organise a new festival in another Italian city. To see how this melodrama unfolds, we’ll have to wait until 22 May.

Source: La Repubblica