{"id":142155,"date":"2025-09-16T22:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T22:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142155\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T22:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T22:51:08","slug":"%f0%9f%87%b5%f0%9f%87%b9-portugal-festival-da-cancao-2026-format-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/142155\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf9 Portugal: Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026 Format Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

RTP, the Portuguese national broadcaster, has revealed the format of Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026.<\/p>\n

As in previous years, Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026 will consist of two semi-finals and a final. In each semi-final, a jury (50%) and public voting (50%) will choose four songs to advance to the final. The public will then choose a fifth song to advance to the final. In the final, seven regional juries (50%) and public voting (50%) will decide the winner. However, this year sees several changes in the format.<\/p>\n

A total of 16 songs will compete in Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026. Of these songs, 8 will be composed by composers who have been directly invited by RTP. A further 6 will be selected through an open submission, which is open until October 31. Residents of Portugal and Portuguese citizens living abroad may submit entries. NAPA, the winners of Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2025, will select one artist to participate in the contest.<\/p>\n

The final artist will be chosen through the Prova de Acesso\u00a0(Entrance Exam). RTP contacted two music schools; Escola de Tecnologias Inova\u00e7\u00e3o e Cria\u00e7\u00e3o (ETIC) in Lisbon and Escola Superior de M\u00fasica e Artes do Espet\u00e1culo (ESMAE) in Porto, to nominate five artists\/groups per school with a song that has already been released. RTP then chose five artists for the Prova de Acesso.\u00a0Online voting will determine which of the five artists will receive the final spot in Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026.<\/p>\n

Voting for Prova de Acesso\u00a0is now open for Portuguese citizens until September 30. Only one vote per IP address is allowed daily. The Prova de Acesso\u00a0artists will present one of their original songs, but the winner will have to compose a new song for Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026.<\/p>\n

The artists competing in Prova de Acesso\u00a0are:<\/p>\n

1poucodeso
\nDinis Mota
\nDiogo Catanho
\nPolar Opposites
\nTilde<\/p>\n

Another change in the format is that the winner of Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026 will not automatically have the right to represent Portugal at Eurovision 2026 but will have the opportunity to do so. This means that Portugal has yet to officially confirm their participation in this year\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

NAPA represented Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with the song \u201cDeslocado\u201d. They finished in 21st place with 50 points.<\/p>\n

Image source: Sarah Louise Bennett\/ EBU | Source: RTP<\/a><\/p>\n

Portugal in the Eurovision Song Contest<\/p>\n

Portugal debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 represented by Ant\u00f3nio Calv\u00e1rio. The country finished last, scoring nul points. Before 2017, Portugal\u2019s best result was 6th place, which came in 1996 when L\u00facia Moniz performed \u201cO meu cora\u00e7\u00e3o n\u00e3o tem cor\u201d in Oslo. In 2017, Salvador Sobral took home the crystal microphone with his song \u201cAmar pelos dois\u201d, ending a 53-year wait for a Portuguese win. The 2018 contest was held in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon for the first time. <\/p>\n

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Posted by:Neil Farren<\/p>\n

Neil is from Ireland but has lived in several countries around Europe. He has has been an editor for Eurovoix since May 2017. He has been following the Eurovision Song Contest since 2005 and attended every contest as press since 2019. He also follows other Eurovision contests, such as the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, which he has watched since the very first edition in 2003.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RTP, the Portuguese national broadcaster, has revealed the format of Festival da Can\u00e7\u00e3o 2026. As in previous years,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-142155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}