American Song Contest: a 2:1 Eurovision with Melodifestivalen? – Summary 2/3.

The American Song Contest is knocking on our door: on Monday night, March 21, the American Eurovision Song Contest will debut, in a format that may already be familiar from Sweden…

We’ve previously explored why the overseas format could be a success, but this time we’ve gone a little further. In our three-part summary of the history of the American Song Contest, we gave a brief history of the American Song Contest, but now we take a media perspective on the American Song Contest. Now the pros and cons: why the American Song Contest will be the essence – or synergy – of the Eurovision Song Contest and the Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national selection…

American Song Contest – a competition for the greatest talents?

The original news reports had originally suggested that the format was basically designed to compete for emerging talent and established performers in the United States, with a view to expanding to Mexico and Canada in the future. Eurovision.tv, the official website of the Eurovision Song Contest, has also revealed that the 50 states, the 5 American territories (American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) and the capital Washington D.C. will each send one contestant to compete for the win. These performances were selected by The American Song Contest Academy, made up of Propagate Content members, according to the idea. The academy is made up of music professionals and regional audiences who will decide which production will represent each state. The selected performers will compete head-to-head in a series of qualifying competitions. The best performers from these qualifying rounds will go through to the national semi-finals (Semi-Finals 1-2) and from there to the main event Grand Final.

The format of the Swedish-Swiss-American co-production has thus been almost finalised since mid-2020, with the opening of the preliminary series of 5-10 qualifying rounds on 21 March 2022, followed by the traditional semi-finals and the Grand Final, which will announce the winner of the American Song Contest, on the world wide web and on TV in some European nations.

56 songs and productions will compete for the title of Best Original Song under the new overseas Eurovision franchise, but the format was left to the last minute: only various reports have been published about the possible voting and the winners…

Semi-finalists and finalists at the American Song Contest

A detailed announcement about the format of the qualifying rounds and semi-finals can be found on the portal of Melodifestivalen, the Swedish national selection of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Details can be found on the next page of our summary.