Radiotelevizione Svizzera di lingua Italiana (the Italian-speaking Swiss broadcaster) has opened an online voting procedure in order to select its wildcard(s) for the Swiss internal selection for Eurovision 2019.
The Swiss internal selection
For the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, Switzerland will not use Die Entscheidungsshow, but an internal selection instead. A panel of 100 Swiss citizens and a jury of 20 foreign artists will internally decide who will represent Switzerland in Israel, on a 50/50 basis.
There are two ways to get to the final rounds :
- applying directly to the national broadcaster SSR online
- being chosen as a wildcard by a regional broadcaster (RSI, RTS and SRF)
Each braodcaster can send up to three wildcards, but the voting panels won’t know which song is a wildcard and which song went through the online application process.
Today, and until September 28th, RSI gives everyone the opportunity to vote for its wildcard(s), among a selection of 13 songs. We do not know yet if RSI will send three wildcards or less.
The 13 songs
RSI’s lineup is made of 13 songs, but only 11 singers, two of them presenting two songs each. The complete songs can be listened to here. This is the complete list:
- Davide Buzzi – “Mama”
- Dianaerika Lettieri – “Amore infernale”
- Iris Moné – “Lift My Soul Up”
- Iris Moné – “Torno a casa”
- Julie Meletta – “Mama (I Walk Alone)”
- Karin Cerini – “Sorry”
- Matteo Rossi – “One More Time”
- Max Deste – “Dove finisce il giorno”
- NickAntic – “Until you will be mine”
- Scilla Hess – “Playground”
- Scilla Hess – “Silence Breakers”
- Sebalter – “We’ll Carry the Light”
- Tommaso Giacopini – “Mi hai detto ama”
The most famous name here is obviously Sebalter: he represented Switzerland in Copenhagen 2014, where he finished 13th with “Hunter of Stars”.
Among the Eurovision-related artists, one can notice Iris Moné who lost to Sebalter in the 2014 national selection – she was part of 3ForAll -, as well as Matteo Rossi. He participated in the 2016 selection under the name of Theo, with the song “Because of You”, and finished in 5th place. Finally, Scilla Hess participated in the 2011 Swiss selection with “Barbie Doll”.
How to vote – the ESCXTRA guide for non-Italian speakers
This is the tricky part, for RSI has an original voting process, and also took steps to protect the voting from basic fraud.
Registering on Vota la Musica
First, you need to register to an official survey portal of SSR, here.
Click on “Registrati qui”, then fill in with your first name, your family name, an email adress, your gender and your birthdate. You can also use your Facebook account to register.
You have to check the first proposition under the forms (accepting terms&conditions), but not the two others (receiving invitations for other surveys, and receiving the newsletter). Then click on “Succesivo”.
You will then receive an activation link by email. Click on it, then on succesivo until you get to the part where they ask you for more personal information. Actually, you only need to give a country, a ZIP Code (codice postale), a phone number and to select “Altro” to answer “In quale territorio o città vivi?” (except if you live in Italy or Switzerland).
Finally, you will have to answer a survey about your radio listening habit. Basically, except if you listen to Swiss radio, select “Altro” everywhere, and use Google Translate for the rest.
Voting
The voting itself is original too, because it is used for many musical surveys made by the broadcaster.
You will listen to small extracts of each songs (but remember you can listen to them in full here). During each extract and during the pause after the extract, you will need to “rate” the song between 0 and 100 on a scale. The key says, from top to bottom:
- I love it
- I like it
- It’s alright
- I don’t like it
- I hate it
- I don’t know it
WARNING: Rating a song “0” corresponds to “I don’t know it”, which is not a fancy way of saying “I don’t know her” (which would by the way be a litteral translation of what the website says). Since the system is used for many surveys, “0” is normally used when you never heard a song the website asks you to survey. It is unknown if the songs are rated 0 or if the algorithm takes it as a “no rate”. If you really hate a song, we advise you to rate it “1” to make sure your opinion is taken into account.
The website will play the next song once you click on one of the three buttons at the bottom. There, you can basically say how bored/tired you are, in order for the website to choose the next song. From left to right: “Not bored”, “A bit bored”, “Bored to death”.
What do you think about those songs? Can one of them win the whole selection and get on the Eurovision stage? Is there qualification material? Winning material? Tell us more on the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!
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