Serene Song Contest

The **Serene Song Contest**, often shortened to **SSC** is a song contest on YouTube held among countries of the world since August 2023. The competition is based upon the existing Eurovision Song Contest held among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1956, and the previous contest projects hosted on nns' channel.

Each country's head of delegation gets to select an entry for each edition internally. All entries are revealed in the participation video. Then the countries cast votes in the final to their favourite songs to determine the winner.

## Origins

The first ever SSC started in August 2023. It was held in Barcelona, making Spain the first ever country to host the contest. Twenty-six nations took part in the first edition. Participants of the contest awarded 12 points to their favorite, 10 points to their second favourite and then 8 points to 1 point for the rest. The first contest was won by Ukraine.

## Participation

Participation in the contest is determined by the organiser of the contest. Each full member has got a certain broadcaster that is responsible for the choice of the artists and songs the country is sending for each edition. The head of delegation makes the final choice and submits it to the reference group at the earliest opportunity.

The six lowest placing countries from the previous edition are relegated and unable to participate in the upcoming edition, and are replaced either with debuting or returning countries.

Thirty-five countries have participated at least once. These are listed here alongside the edition in which they made their debut.

## Format

The contest's format has remained constant since the contest's debut. The contest has one final featuring twenty-six countries. All songs are performed during the final and then the jury of each country cast their votes to determine the winner.

Since the very first edition the winning country of each edition is automatically chosen to be the host of the next edition. As the host broadcaster, the heads of delegation can decide how and when they want to host the competition and offer suggestions to the reference group that will be highly considered. The winning head of delegation also wins the privilege of choosing an entry earlier than other people. In the event of the host winning, the second-place head of delegation wins this privilege.

## Rules

There are several rules of the contest in order to enter. The main rule of the contest is that the country has to officially join the Serene Broadcasting Union with a certain broadcaster before applying to enter the contest. When song submission opens, users can take the position of head of delegation of one of the participating countries. It is common for users to change the country whose delegation they lead each edition, however sometimes they will choose to stay with the same country. All songs must be approved by the reference group of the contest. The song must have been released from 2010 onwards, and have less than 50 million views on YouTube. Participants can be of any age and each head of delegation can only represent one country. Participating artists should have a strong connection to the country they are representing, but heads of delegation can be from any country.

## Voting

The voting system used in the contest has been in place since the beginning. Each country awards one set of 12, 10, and 8–1 points to their 10 favourite songs. Followers of the contest who do not participate are also allowed to cast votes, as long as they are approved by the executive supervisor, their votes are combined into one rest of the world set of votes. In case of the country not being able to deliver the voting or fail to deliver votes in time, replacement votes are used. The user may receive a warning from the contest reference group. All votes are counted equally, and each vote holds the same weight in the overall result apart from the rest of the world voters.

### **Presentation of Votes**

The presentation of votes remains the same between editions. Since the first edition, all finalists have been required to vote. If they did not fulfil this requirement with no explanation, the council would award warnings that would eventually result in a temporary ban from participating. A scoreboard is usually used to present the votes. The council reveals the points starting with last place and gradually going on until the winner is revealed.

### **Nul points and ties**

No entry has received 0 points in the final. The lowest score was achieved by Japan in edition 2 of the contest, only receiving four points.

Ties between countries are common in the contest. In the event of a tie, the country that received the most sets of 12 points takes the higher place. If this amount is the same, then the number of 10 points are counted, then 8, and so on. If the tie can still not be broken, the song that performed earliest in the running order breaks the tie.

## Winners

The contest so far has two winning countries. No country has won the contest twice yet. 'Mara', Ukraine's winning entry, currently holds the record for the highest scoring winner, achieving 154 points in the final of edition 1. The most recent winner is United Kingdom, with the song "Quiet, I Can't Think" by Safesp8ce.