New Cambria National Song Contest

The New Cambria National Song Contest (French: Concours National de la Chanson) is an annual music competition organized by New Cambria Public Broadcasting (NCPB). Held every year since 2004, the Grand Final show was the country's most popular television program in 2007 with nearly 2 million viewers. The contest is also broadcast over New Cambria Radio and online.

So far, the contest has produced four winners: two male soloists, one female soloist and one group. The winner of the Song Contest has been chosen by a mixture of a jury panel and televoting, by a ratio of 50%-50% from 2004-2006 and 60% televote and 40% jury since 2007. Voting by SMS was introduced in 2006. The competition makes a considerable impact on music charts in New Cambria, and each of the four winning songs has gone on to be a country-wide hit.

In its first three years, the contest consisted of three Semi-Finals, a Wild Card Semi-Final and a Grand Final Gala. A shake-up of the format occurred for the 2007 contest, and a fourth Semi-Final round was added, among several other changes. The shake-up proved to be successful, and ratings for the 2007 contest increased more than 60% over the previous year. While English-language pop has been the most represented genre of music in the contest, it has also given French- and Keva-language music a wider audience, and hip-hop, soul, folk and even opera songs have been featured.

Origins
The contest's format is borrowed heavily from the Melodifestivalen, a music competition from Sweden used to select that country's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. While the Eurovision is a popular televised event in Sweden, ratings for the grand final of the Melodifestivalen are just as high, sometimes even higher. New Cambria Television (NCT) began planning for a locally-produced version of Melodifestivalen in 2001, with the first edition set to air in the summer of 2002. Budgetary problems, largely due to the costs of NCT's airing the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, put the idea on the back burner until 2004, when NCT asked for the assistance of Sveriges Television, the Swedish broadcaster responsible for Melodifestivalen, to give the New Cambria version a kick start.

The Grand Final of the 2004 contest was held on 4 December 2004, and was a ratings hit. That year's winner, 26-year-old Kyle Mason has since gone on to have a successful singing career. NCPB was so impressed with the contest that planning for the 2005 edition began just six weeks after the 2004 contest ended.

Participation
In its five-year history, a total of 120 songs have been performed in the contest, out of a total of 3,296 submissions. From 2004 to 2007, songwriters, composers and performers had to be citizens of New Cambria, a rule that was relaxed in 2008 to permit resident non-citizens. To be eligible, songwriters, composers and performers must be at least eighteen years of age on the day of the first Semi-Final round.

The number of semi-finalists has always been 24, from which ten finalists are selected over the course of the Semi-Final rounds. A CD of each year's semi-finalists has been released each year since 2005, and a DVD of the 2007 contests Semi-Finals and Grand Final was released in January 2008.

The National Song Contest has been the launch-pad for the success of popular regional performers and was described by Spin magazine as "the only place in the world where Keva music can receive an audience of millions." While local success of contest winners is common, most contestants do not achieve international recognition from it. The impact that the competition makes on the New Cambria charts means that a song need not win the contest to earn significant domestic record sales. For example, Just A Mystery, the song that finished last in the 2004 contest, topped New Cambria's singles chart.

Selection of Contestants
The process of narrowing hundreds of potential entries down two twenty-four lasts only a few weeks. The submission period is open from mid-spring to late summer, and the semi-finalists are announced in early fall. The vast majority of songs are performed in English, though French- and Keva-language songs have been featured in every edition. The first song to not be performed in any of these languages was Douar Nevez in the 2008 contest. The songs length is limited to three minutes.

The submission process is overseen my New Cambria Television and the contest's organizing committee, who together appoint a panel of judges to reduce the number of songs to around 100. The 926 entries received in the submissions period for the 2008 contest is the most to date. The judging panel's choices are then given to a twelve-person jury of music professionals, NCT staff and other members of the public. The jury ranges from teenagers to people in their fifties. The songs that qualify, along with their composers and lyricists, are announced in October. Songwriters that qualify must provide interviews to NCT, attend a press conference before the competition, and remain open to promotional appearances if their song reaches the Grand Final.

Televised Events
The televised National Song Contest lasts six weeks, consisting of one live show each week: four Semi-Finals, in which six songs compete; a Wild Card Semi-Final featuring songs which narrowly missed out on qualification from the Semi-Finals; and a Grand Final Gala. Ten songs comprise the Grand Final: two automatic qualifiers from each Semi-Final, and the two most popular songs in the Wild Card round.

Semi-Finals and Wild Card
Under the current system, four Semi-Finals are broadcast at 8:00pm local time on consecutive Saturday nights. The Semi-Finals begin the first week of November, and six songs compete in each show.

The songs are performed live with telephone lines open only after all six songs have been performed. After the eight-member jury and the viewing audience have cast their votes, the two automatic qualifiers and two Wild Card qualifiers are announced. To keep the show from running too long, the exact points awarded by the jury and televoters are not revealed during the event itself, but are published on NCT's website within an hour of the show's end. At the end of the broadcast, both automatic finalists reprise their entries.

The Wild Card Semi-Final is the fifth round, in which the final two places in the Grand Final are decided. The third- and fourth-placed songs from each Semi-Final (eight songs in total) compete in the event. To ensure that the songs are judged as fairly as possible, no jury member from any of the Semi-Finals may serve on the jury of the Wild Card round.

Grand Final Gala
The Grand Final takes place at 8:00pm on the first or second Saturday in December. Ten songs participate: two from each Semi-Final and two from the Wild Card round. Dress rehearsals for the Final are held on the Friday before, and tickets sell out almost as quickly as those for the Final itself. The Final attracts much tourism to its host city; a survey in 2008 showed that 59% of spectators had traveled from outside the city, Arvant. Of these 4% had come from outside New Cambria, most of which were Canadians.

Video "postcards" introduce the entries. The final includes interval performances, which are performed while the juries deliberate and before the televote closes. Former contestants often return to perform as interval acts in the Final and Semi-Finals.

The winner receives a trophy, awarded by the previous year's winner. The winner of the competition reprises their song at the end of the event.

Voting
The current voting format is a variation on the Borda count. Eight jurors award the songs between 1 and 10 points, the exact amount of which varies from the Semi-Finals and the Grand Final. Televotes are weighted to be the equivalent of 12 individual jurors, with the lowest-ranked song receiving 12 points and the highest-ranking song receiving 120 points. The song with the highest number of points at the end of both sets of results is the winner. The points are structured in order to provide clear leaders in the Semi-Finals, but closer, more exciting results in the Grand Final.

Telephone lines are opened only after all the songs have been performed. Two telephone numbers are used, giving voters the option of whether to donate to NCT's children's charity fund or not as they vote. Viewers can also vote by text message, though only votes cast from phones in New Cambria are counted.

Each of the eight jurors announce his or her individual votes either live at the venue or via satellite. The votes are read in ascending order, beginning with the second-lowest value and finishing with the highest value. For example, in the Grand-Final, the "two points" is the first value to be read out, so that when only the "ten points" remains to be announced, two songs are still without points, in order to enhance the excitement of the voting. After the highest value is announced and tabulated, the song that received the "one point" has its score automatically updated without an announcement.

As the votes are announced, they are collated on a graphic scoreboard. NCT varies the way the jury votes are announced from year to year, and votes may be announced in English, French or Keva. Televoting results are announced by the hosts in ascending order in the same manner are the jurors' votes. If there is a tie, the song that received more votes from the public receives the higher position. This has yet to occur in the Grand Final, but has happened on a few occasions in the Semi-Finals, in which two or more songs have tied for a single qualifying position.

Rules
The official rules are released by NCT early in preparation for each year's contest, to ensure any changes are noted by songwriters and performers.

There was a limit of four people on stage for each performance, which was increased to six beginning in 2008. No more than two people can share credit for the music composition, and no more than two people can share credit for writing the lyrics. All vocals must be performed live; recorded human voices or synthesized vocals are not allowed. Music is generally not allowed to be performed live on stage, because the time required to set-up, take-away and sound check the instruments would be prohibitively long. Certain instruments that do not need to be individually miked may be allowed at the discretion of the shows' directors. Otherwise, all music is provided by backing track.

Entries cannot be broadcast publicly until the Semi-Final rounds are previewed on the radio. Entries eliminated in the Semi-Finals may be broadcast as soon as the Semi-Final has finished. A restriction is placed on songs that qualify for the later rounds until the previews for the Wild Card Semi-Final are broadcast. After this, restrictions on the broadcast of contestant songs are lifted.

Media Coverage
The National Song Contest is broadcast on television, radio, and the Internet. It is broadcast on NCT One without commentary, and on NCT Three with commentary in French. In 2007, the Grand Final was given its first international screening, when it was broadcast live to television viewers in Newfoundland, and arrangement that will remain in 2008. A delayed broadcast of the 2008 Grand Final will also be screened in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

The contest has had an official website since its inception, however it was only updated during the summer and fall of each year until 2006. Since then, the website has had a staff of reporters and editors who provide contest-related information throughout the year. A webcast of the contest was provided in 2007, and will be again in 2008. Broadcast the night after the final, "National Song Contest: Looking Back," is a television special that acts as an epilogue to the event, gauging the reactions of the finalists after the contest's climax. An English-language commentary is given for the radio broadcast of the final, but not for the television broadcast. A French-language commentary of the live broadcast is provided on NCT Three. The event is broadcast in widescreen, Dolby Digital, and, since 2007, high definition.

The ratings for the first event were higher than expected, with approximately 37% of the viewing audience tuning into the final. The ratings rose sharply in 2005, but declined almost as much in 2006. A series of format changes and heavy promotion gave the 2007 Grand Final the contest's highest ever ratings. The National Song Contest is given heavy coverage in New Cambria's press, with interviews and write-ups turning local musicians into national celebrities almost overnight.