Sanremo 2026, Sal Da Vinci: “This is the victory of a people”

Sanremo 2027: for the abolition of the press room vote

ByJohn

This year too, there has been no shortage of the now usual and annoying controversies on the influence of the press room’s vote on the final result of the Sanremo Festival: we have written about it here and here, among other things.

I have already written it several times in the past, here and here, and I repeat it, always as a personal opinion as a former frequenter of the Sanremo press room (an opinion that does not necessarily involve the Rockol editorial team, neither as a whole nor in its individual elements).

And my opinion is that voting in the press room and in the radio press room should simply be abolished

The press room votes were introduced into the regulations a few years ago, and were essentially a captatio benevolentiae move invented by the Festival organization to make journalists (and then radios) feel more involved.

There is no sensible reason to have the two press rooms vote with a vote that affects the final result of the Festival. The Ariston press room and the radio press room each have a specific prize: let them be content to express their “competent” opinion in this way (oh dear, so to speak, let’s not generalize), ask that their prizes be announced on the final evening, just as category satisfaction, and to make these prizes more credible and authoritative, commit to voting nominally, making it known who voted for whom. Rockol journalists have been doing this, in splendid solitude, for a few years now. It would be a good thing if everyone else did too.

I discussed this and more with Andrea Spinelli, the colleague who for many years has acted as president of the Mia Martini Critics’ Award and spokesperson for the Ariston press room, who this year proposed the issue of the press room vote to RAI, asking for its revision or repeal.

Below is our conversation, in which what Andrea Spinelli expresses is his personal thought and does not necessarily represent the opinion of all his colleagues in the Sanremo Festival press room.

First part:

Second part:

John
John

With an untamed passion and deep, eclectic knowledge of music, John is the soul of RadioWise UK. Having worked in the music industry for over two decades, his vision was to create a platform that embodies the love and respect for music. John is known for his great attention to detail and insatiable thirst for discovering new talents and music genres.