Tonight: Festival da Cançao 2025 Semi-final #1 in Portugal

by · esctoday

Boa tarde Europe, this is Lisbon calling! We are travelling to the sunny shores of Portugal tonight for the First Semifinal of Festival da Cançao 2025.

Portugal will be kicking off its traditional national selection Festival da Cançao this evening.

How to watch?

You can watch Festival da Canção 2025 Semi-final #1 at 22:00 CET  (21:00 local time) via the following channels:

  • RTP 1
  • RTP 1 webstream
  • RTP International
  • RTP Asia
  • RTP America

The Participants

About the show

A total of 10 acts will be battling tonight for a ticket to the Grand Final of Festival da Canção 2025, only six of them will proceed to the next stage of the 2025 Portuguese national selection. Tonight’s show will be hosted by Jorge Gabriel and José Carlos Malato.

FdC 2025

The 2025 FdC will consist of three shows ( two semi-finals and a grand final) scheduled to be broadcast live on 22 February, 01 and 08 March at the RTP Studios in Lisbon, Portugal. The Grand Final of Festival da Cançao 2025 will be held on Saturday 08 March 2025.

A total of 20 acts will battle for the golden ticket to Switzerland, 10 acts will compete in each semi-final, the top 6 entries from each semi-final will proceed to the Grand Final of FdC.  Hence 12 acts will fight for the right to represent Portugal at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in the Portuguese national final.

RTP  extended an invite to 14 composers to submit their songs for the competition, the composers were free to chose the artist/s for their respective songs. Whilst the remaining 6  entries were selected via an open public selection.

The 2025 Portuguese Eurovision entry will be determined via a 50/50 public televoting- regional jury deliberation.

Portugal in Eurovision

Portugal debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 and has won the competition once, namely in 2017 with Salvador Sobral‘s  Amor pelo dois. The country successfully hosted the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon.

Portugal has competed 54 times in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Source: RTP
Cover Photo: RTP