Italy's beloved Sanremo song
festival and competition kicked off on Tuesday night, where the
highlight was an emotional performance by the blind tenor Andrea
Bocelli.
Bocelli, accompanied by his 21-year-old son Matteo, sang the
song with which he debuted at Sanremo 25 years ago, and the
audience responded with a standing ovation.
Viewership reached its highest point for the evening during
Bocelli's performance, with 15.6 million people tuning in to see
the opera singer and his son on stage at the Ariston Theatre.
An average of 10.086 million viewers watched State
broadcaster RAI's flagship Rai1 channel on Tuesday night, 49.5%
of the overall audience share.
This is down on the average of 11.603 million viewers of the
first night last year - 52.1% of the audience share.
The long-standing festival, this year in its 69th edition, is
once again in the hands of singer-songwriter Claudio Baglioni,
who was also the artistic director last year.
Baglioni on Wednesday said he was satisfied with the debut
evening's results, and Rai1 director Teresa De Santis said it
was "one of the best in the past five years".
De Santis said she was particularly pleased with the showing
among the 15-24 age demographic, where the share reached a high
of 71%, with an average of 62.7%.
She said it was Baglioni who managed to "bring to Sanremo
those who wouldn't have seen it, an audience that doesn't go on
general TV".
The festival also attracted significant interest on social
media, with a total of 2.8 million interactions on Facebook,
Twitter, and Instagram, which De Santis said made the show "the
most significant event of the season from September 2018 to
now".
The show's hosts, comic Claudio Bisio and impressionist
Virginia Raffaele, were a hit with the crowd - although
Raffaele, who hails from Rome, committed a gaffe by 'saluting'
the Casamonica Rome crime family.
On Wednesday evening 12 artists will compete, with
performances scheduled in the following line-up: Achille Lauro,
Einar, Il Volo, Arisa, Nek, Daniele Silvestri, Ex-Otago, Ghemon,
Loredana Bertè, Paola Turci, Negrita, and Federica Carta and
Shade.
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