Portugal’s songwriters are ready to eat. On Monday state broadcaster RTP revealed that it had received a “record” number of songs in the open submission portion of their national selection Festival da Canção 2024. As ESC Portugal reports, this year’s 809 submissions represent a jump of 194 songs over last year. This year’s haul obliterates the previous record, set in 2021, when 693 songs were submitted.
Producers will now entrust a special selection committee to whittle the 809 songs down to just six. They’ll join 14 other songs, which are being composed by 14 songwriters invited to participate in the festival by RTP.
The competition will follow the format we saw last year. Twenty acts will compete across two semi-finals: ten in the first semi, ten others in the second semi. Six acts will qualify to the final from each show, giving us a grand final with 12 acts.
In the first round, the top five acts (as determined by a 50-50 jury-televote split) will advance. The sixth finalist will be determined solely by the public vote in a new round of voting.
In the grand final, the result will be determined by combining the results of regional juries (50%) with the televote (50%). The public breaks any tie.
Last year Mimicat won Portugal’s national final with the upbeat “Ai coração.” She placed ninth in Semi-Final 1. Mimicat performed second in the grand final — the so-called “slot of death” — and finished in 23rd place overall.
No matter the result, she won over plenty of new fans. Writing on the wiwibloggs web site, our Jonathan said:
“Portugal have become known for their ballads over recent years, but Mimicat is proving that the country can also put its stamp on something more uptempo. “Ai Coração” feels distinctly Portuguese, which sets it apart from everything else in the contest. Yet, there’s also a theatricality behind the song and performance that sells it to a slightly broader demographic. Add Mimicat’s commanding vocals on top and Portugal have themselves a fiery entry with a lot of potential.”
Are you excited for Portugal’s selection? Who do you want to see compete?
It´s one of my favourite preselections every year and I even can unterstand a little bit of Portuguese,.
FdC is not my cup of tea when it comes to music. but I’m happy for them.
Yeah I don’t follow this selection either but in general I’m quite pleased with what Portugal sends. Mimicat deserved a top 15 last imo and The Black Mamba was in my top 10 back in 2021. I hope Portugal will continue to compete in its own way.
This is the first time ever Portugal will participate in ESC held in Sweden
No… Portugal was there in Stockholm in 1975, in Göteborg in 1985 and in Malmö in 1992.
But since 2000, they indeed missed everytime the competition was held in Sweden.
I hope Edmundo tries again with a new song.
So much news today… it feels like the off-season is wrapping up!
Last year’s FdC was so good, it’s gonna be really hard to top.
Portugal has always been my favourite country in ESC. There’s not many entries that I don’t like, and indeed there are many I adore. My all time favourite Eurovision entry ever is Lusitana Paixao : I think Dulce gave the performance of her life in Rome and the orchestra were superb. I think that Portugal, on many occasions have been overlooked : I loved Maria Guinot 1984, Adelaide 1985, Sara Tavares 1994, Lucia Moniz 1996, Vania 2008, Black Mamba 2021 and Maro 2022 (shes probs my 2nd favourite ever entry) and to me they were all massively underrated – Silencio… Read more »
Sorry – I forgot Salvador!! Don’t particularly like him but loved his song!!
What’s not to like about him? He’s honest, decent, talented, good-looking, loves his family, supports refugees, values musical talent etc. etc.
He didn’t really encapture the whole spirit of Eurovision and the whole “fast food music” thing really annoyed me! I’ve no doubt he’s honest, loves his family etc, but in comparison to other Eurovision artists/artistes, he’s got the personality of a postage stamp!!!
And I don’t believe for a minute he values all musical talent – he didn’t value Netta did he?
I thought he captured the old spirit of the contest very well. Actually giving the trophy to the songwriter, making sure it was not all about the singer, giving Luisa a moment to shine. Nowadays the songwriters are practically non-existant.
Portugal 2017 is my favourite ever at ESC !
That is more than 5 years ago. He was in a very bad place. We did not know back then, but he was really struggling for his life, not knowing if after some weeks after wining he would die… In fact one month later he was hospitalized in intensive care. Since then he evolved and did make amends several times, saying that he regretted what he said. But that part people don’t want to know and prefer to continue their own narrative that they created 5 years ago. Who knows? He might even return to ESC with his own composition… Read more »
I hope Sara Tavares comes back to FdC. I loved seeing her perform at Lisbon 2018.
Sara Tavares died last november 🙁