The Origin Song Contest

*For the current edition see The Origin Song Contest 08.*

**The Origin Song Contest**, often shortened to **TOSC**, is a song contest held on Youtube held between members of the Origin Broadcasting Union. It has been held since January 2017 and was based upon the format of the Eurovision Song Contest, held among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956. The current executive supervisor is Jaana Pelkonen (although Laura Rizzotto was interim executive supervisor in the fifth edition while Pelkonen took part in the contest), whilst Shaun is responsible for the organisation of the contest.

Each country's head of delegation gets to select an entry for each edition, either by internal or national selection. The countries get to vote in a number of shows (semi-finals and a final) to determine the qualifiers and the winner of the edition.

So far, seven countries have won the competition and with that the right to host the contest. Apart from Poland, who hosted the first edition due to organising the contest, Finland, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Belarus and Belgium have won and been host of the contest. In the fifth edition, Poland hosted the contest again due to reigning champion Italy's withdrawal from the contest, after finishing second in the fourth edition. The first winner was Finland's Ellinoora who won the first edition with her song "Elefantin Paino" which got 130 points, 1 point ahead the runner-up, whilst the highest scoring song was the Belarusian entry in the sixth edition, "Toi et moi" by Parade of Planets, which scored 244 points, and is to date the only entry with over 200 points and to win by a margin of over 100 points. The most recent winner is "Please to Devon" by Sylvie Kreusch, which won the seventh edition for Belgium.

## History

On 28th January 2017, Shaun, former executive supervisor and current contest organiser of the Origin Broadcasting Union decided to launch a song contest, where every full member of the OBU could take part by sending artists to represent their countries. It was called *The Origin Song Contest*. At the start, the contest was not fully developed so there were a lot of rule changes and disputes between broadcasters during that time phase.

The first ever The Origin Song Contest started on 29th January 2017. It was held in Kraków, Poland which was therefore the first ever country to host The Origin Song Contest, and also the first ever direct qualifier for the final. Thirty-three nations took part in the first edition, each submitting one entry to the contest. Each country awarded 12 points to their favourite, 10 points to their second favourite and then 8 points to 1 point for the rest. In the semi final, the countries also deducted 1, 2 and 3 points from their least favourites, and in the final, deducted 1 to 5 points. The voting procedure has not changed since then despite rumours of a slight change for the second edition.

Finland was the first ever country to win the contest. The winner is traditionally set to be the host of the following The Origin edition, however in certain circumstances, such as a country being unable to host for financial reasons, the runner up may host instead. This was the case in the fifth edition, where runners-up Poland stepped in to replace Italy after they withdrew from the contest amid press controversy and financial issues.

### Logo and theme

The generic logo for the contest was introduced in the first edition. The logo featured the contest's name as well as host information. The edition-specific logo also includes the flag of the host country in a rotated circle behind the name of the contest.

At the start of the fifth edition, the generic logo was given a refresh: all components of the logo remained, however some changes to the font weight and circle were made, as well as the loss of the drop shadow on light-background variants, to produce a more modern and contemporary logo still reflective of the previous one.

### Slogans

When producing the theme art for each edition of the contest, a slogan is also decided, often based around the visual identity of the contest or the winning song of the previous edition.