Sanremo 2026 was postponed to late February due to the Winter Olympics. Why is Italy sidelining its most iconic festival?
Sanremo 2026, which also serves as Italy’s national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, will be held unusually late this year – from February 24 to 28 – instead of early February as is customary. The change comes as a result of the Winter Olympics in Milan, prioritized by the Italian national broadcaster, RAI. This significant shift in the country’s broadcasting schedule is expected to impact the ever-tightening relationship between the festival and the Eurovision Song Contest.
Sacrificing the Festival for Olympic Ratings
The decision by the Italian national broadcaster to postpone the prestigious festival – one of the cornerstones of Italian pop culture and among the oldest music festivals in the world – stems from the high commercial potential of the Winter Olympics. According to sources in Rome, February is expected to be a “crazy” month for ratings and advertising revenue, particularly in prime time slots. This is a strategic move aimed at uniting viewers around major live national events – although not everyone is pleased to see Sanremo pushed aside in the process.
Eurovision Pressure and Musical Implications
Delaying the festival to the last week of February significantly shortens the available time for choosing Italy’s representative for Eurovision 2026, adding pressure on organizers and participating artists. While regulations allow countries to submit their Eurovision entry until mid-March, the compressed timeline between Sanremo’s final and the following preparations could lead to rushed decisions. In past cases, such as in 2020, scheduling shifts influenced the final selection process and created confusion around the song and artist choice.
From a promotional standpoint, Sanremo may also lose some of its international media buzz this year, as overlapping with other global events could reduce cross-border exposure. This is especially significant for Eurovision fan communities, which traditionally follow Sanremo closely to predict Italy’s potential representative.
Programming Shakeups and Management Restructuring
In addition to Sanremo’s delay, RAI’s new executive leadership, headed by Giampaolo Rossi, unveiled a series of changes. New broadcast times for flagship shows – along with drastic late-night program cuts – signal a clear trend of budgetary and creative restructuring. Among other changes, familiar late-night slots will be replaced with reruns, and long-time hosts will be removed from the screen, in an effort to save approximately 25 million euros by the end of 2026.
In conversations we held within the EuroMix community, which includes thousands of Eurovision fans, mixed feelings emerged: “Shifting Sanremo messes up the entire rhythm of the Eurovision season,” some wrote, while others expressed curiosity about how the change might affect the festival’s performance formats. Past experience suggests that such a delay can also spark creative reinvention.
Can Tradition Survive the Digital Revolution?
In a time when live television is losing ground and streaming subscriptions continue to grow, Sanremo still manages to unite Italy around the TV screen. According to ratings data from January–May 2025, RAI1 achieved its highest prime-time share in 21 years, averaging 24.9%. Daytime viewing also saw a year-over-year increase of 0.8 percentage points.
Nevertheless, not everyone is convinced that this shift won’t harm the festival in the long run. Sanremo is more than a music event – it’s a national cultural symbol. Postponing it, for many, represents a trade-off of cultural values for commercial goals. As one social media user sarcastically put it: “Putting sports before music is like replacing the national anthem with a new flag.”
Italy at Eurovision 2025
“Volevo essere un duro” (translated as: “I Wanted to Be Tough”) is the song performed by singer Lucio Corsi, which came second at the 75th edition of the Sanremo Festival. The song was written by the singer himself along with Tommaso Ottomano. This was the singer’s first-ever appearance at the festival. The song is performed in Italian. The song finished fifth in the grand final with 256 points.
Italy returns to the Eurovision Grand Final Top 5 after last year achieving “only” seventh place.
Eurovision 2025: This was Italy’s 50th participation in Eurovision. Italy joined the contest in 1956, was one of the seven founding countries, and has won three times over the years. Italy’s most recent victory was at Eurovision 2021 with the song “Zitti e buoni” performed by the band Måneskin.
