No televoting in semi-final

Televoting has been dropped from the semi-final of the upcoming Malta Song for Europe, as the board overhauls the regulations after two successive Eurovision washouts for Malta.

The new regulations, released yesterday on Maltasong's website, are an attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff and give the public the best songs to choose from in the final contest.

This year a professional jury of seven judges, who are likely to be all foreign, will choose the eight songs that make it to the final, as opposed to last year where the choice was split equally between a jury and televoting.

Maltasong board chairman Robert Abela told The Times that changes have also been made in the final selection process where the winning song will be chosen through televoting (80 per cent) and judges (20 per cent), instead of 100 per cent televoting.

The venue is also changed and the festival, being held on February 21 and 23, will be moving back to the Mediterranean Conference Centre, in Valletta.

The regulations for the festival were revamped after intensive consultation with the composers, authors and singers during the summer.

"We took on board a lot of their views. The thought behind eliminating televoting from the semi-finals emerged because they felt that these past two years the choice for the winning song was based on the singer's popularity, rather than the song," he said.

Malta's reputation for placing among the top 10 entries at the Eurovision received a blow in the past two contests - Fabrizio Faniello came in last in 2006, while Olivia Lewis placed 25th from 28 countries in the semi-final this year.

So why didn't the board opt to split the final deciding vote equally between a jury and televoting?

"The songs competing in the final race will already have gone through the jury's rigorous decision, so then it's mostly in the hands of the public to vote for the winning package," he said.

The weight of televoting has been a bone of contention for many years and numerous chairmen have swayed from one option to the next giving the public varying degrees of power in the hope of finding the correct combination.

Another significant change is that, during the first elimination phase, the songs will have to be heard live instead of on a demo tape.

"Demo tapes usually enhance the song and include backing vocals. This time we wanted to present the judges with the raw product, and eliminate the risk of the song falling flat once it gets to the stage," Mr Abela explained.

A total of 35 songs will make it through the first phase. These will be short-listed to the 16 songs, which will then compete in the semi-final.

This year, singers will only be able to submit two songs, and the board estimates that this will knock down the number of entries by half, easing the load on judges' ears.

Initially, Mr Abela was of the opinion that composers should have the option of changing the singer if the judges liked the song but were not keen on the way it was interpreted.

However, the board felt this would be too harsh on the singer, so instead composers now have the chance of submitting the same song, sung by two singers - only the best interpretation will go through.

Any tips to the composers?

"The composers are the best people who can gauge the trend on the Eurovision stage, so it's in their hands. All I wish is that they don't churn out past compositions and instead present new material that applies to today's listeners," he said.

Maltasong is hoping these changes will help Malta regain its standing among the top 10 countries in next year's Eurovision in Serbia on May 22.

Whoever wins the local contest will have to first compete in the semi-final on the European stage. However, Mr Abela said that the European Broadcasting Union is actually considering introducing the concept for two semi-finals in 2008, and not in 2009 as originally discussed.

The proposal will entail all participating countries, apart from the winner and the Big Four, having to go through the two semi-finals starting from the upcoming Eurovision. This means the result of this year's contest will not influence the 2008 contest.

The final decision will be taken during a scheduled meeting in Verona, Italy, on September 28.