Zone Song Contest

The **Zone Song Contest** is an international song competition organised twice on a year by the Zone Broadcasting Union (ZBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits a song to be performed on live television and radio, and transmitted to national broadcasters via the ZBU's ZoneVision and the ZoneRadio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries songs to find a winner.

## History

In 2019, during pre and post the transition of the pandemic caused by Covid-19, the Zone Broadcasting Union decided to start a musical contest held three times during a year and run by its active members. "Each country will submit an artist and an original song, competing against each other to determine a winner", this simple but effective invitation was sent to all the ZBU countries which were accepting to participate in the festival. Many countries decided to join the ZBU as associate members, having the opportunity to broadcast the festival live on their broadcasting networks. The first edition was scheduled to be organized in 2019, with the United Kingdom being the first to organize the contest. The Netherlands were also invited to be an Automatic Qualifier as they had won the Eurovision Song Contest, festival on which this contest was based in 2020 and 2021.

### Slogans

An individual slogan is associated with each edition of the contest, this slogan is decided by the host broadcaster and is then used to develop the contest's visual identity and design. The slogan is typically used by the producers in planning and formulating the show's visual identity, and is channelled into the contest's "postcards", short videos interspersed between the entries which introduce the competing acts.

## Format

The Zone Song Contest format consists of two semi-finals (where the top ten scored countries from each one will advance to the Grand Final) and the Grand Final, held almost always with a total of 25 or 26 countries and where the winner of the festival is decided. Since the first edition the winning country of each edition is automatically chosen to be the host of the next edition with some facilities from the ZBU for organizating the contest as best as possible. However if a broadcaster cannot host the competition in its winning country, the runner-up will be able to host the competition.

The audience votes each song with a score from 0 to 100 according to their musical tastes. And using a average system with the help of the *ESC Calc* program the final votes that each country distributes are calculated, including diaspora, neighborhood votes to add realism among other many things. All countries will vote with a 50% jury and 50% televoting even if they are microstates, since each part of the voters is in one group or another. The jury voters are the most loyal to the contest, it means that they vote in all editions, recommend songs, etc. And the other 50% is from televoting where the rest of the voters are located.

### The 'Big 5'

Since the first edition: The 'Big 5' was formed by the following countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom. The highest-paying of the Zone Broadcasting Union members which significantly fund the contest each year. The remaining countries are split between the two semi-finals, and the 10 highest-scoring entries in each qualify to produce 26 (or 25 if a Big 5 wins) countries competing in the Grand Final.

## Participation

Active Members of the Zone Broadcasting Union are eligible to participate; Active Members are those who are located in states that fall within the Zone Broadcasting Area. Active Members include media organisations whose broadcasts are often made available to at least 98% of households in their own country which are equipped to receive such transmissions. Associate Member broadcasters may also be eligible to compete in the contest, dependent on approval or an invitation by the contest's Reference Group.

## The Zone Season

The Zone season is a term often used to refer to the days "around" the contest. It usually lasts one or two months and the most national selections are held that time. Also, various events are hosted during the season like parties or press conferences, People are looking forward to these dates because the festival is only held twice a year.

### Rehearsals and press conferences

Each country has two rehearsals before the contest. The rehearsals start with the semi-final countries nine days before the first semi-final. During the first two days, the rehersals for the first semi-final countries take place while during the next two days the rehearsals for the second semi-final countries take place. The second rehearsals for each country take place on the fifth and sixth days. On the seventh day, the Big 6 countries have their first rehearsal taken. On the ninth day, the Big 6 have their second rehearsal taken. Apart from the regular rehearsals, there are also three dress rehearsals for each show where the full show is rehearsed. The dress rehearsals for the semi-finals and the final take place in two days: twice on the day before the show (one in the afternoon and the other in the evening) and once on the day of the show. The third dress rehearsal, the one before the contest, is the show that is taken place for the jury, which means that the 50% of the result is decided before the live contest. The table shows the schedule that is used for each edition.

## Voting

The voting system it's in use from the first edition. Countries award two sets of points from 1 to 8, then 10 and finally 12 to their favourite songs in the competition — that will finally be combined having this balance: televote (50%) and jury (50%). It was mandatory for all the countries to use a mixed jury-public voting. In case of the country not being able to deliver a part of the voting, back-up juries were used to replace the missing part, that case can happen with televoting for small countries such as Andorra or San Marino if they fail to qualify for the Grand Final.

### Presentation of votes

In all the editions, all the participating countries have been voting in the final, including the countries that failed to qualify from the semi-finals.

The order of the voting nations from the different national juries are often randomly. After the interval act is over, when all the points have been calculated, the presenter(s) of the show call upon each voting country in turn to invite them to announce the results of their votes. The spokesperson of each country announce the twelve points of the jury voting while the televoting scores from all the countries are combined and presented by the presenters at the end of the night based on the results of the jury voting.

### Nul points and ties

Although it is almost impossible for a country to receive nul points there is a clear rule; If there are two or more countries with 'nul points', the one that has acted before will win the position to the other countries. On the other hand surely there will be many ties in the festival. In case of a tie between two or more countries, the country that received points from the most countries wins the tie. However, if the countries received points from the same number of countries, the number of 12 points is counted and if they are still tied it goes on until the tie breaks.

## Participants Top 10

*Further information: Zone Song Contest: Participants Top 10*
It shows how many times the country has participated in the contest and the number of top ten placing.
If you want to see more information about the Participants Top 10, click on the link above to view detailed data about it.

## Ranking Of Nations

1. Take the points that the countries obtained in the Semi-Final
2. Add the points obtained by each country in the Grand Final to those obtained in the Semi-Finals
3. If the country has not qualified for the Grand Final, the points will count as 0
4. The Big 6 will have its Grand Final score multiplied by 1.66 to make an integer
5. Round the value to the nearest integer (whole number)
6. Each country will be ranked in terms of the average obtained by their points in all editions

### Current Ranking

Official ranking of nations of the **Zone Song Contest** released after the fifteenth edition:

## See also

* Countries in the Zone Song Contest
* Languages in the Zone Song Contest
* Winners in the Zone Song Contest