San Remo Music Festival (Festival della canzone italiana), running since 1951, is an Italianpopular song contest held annually (first part of March) in San Remo. It was the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest.
For some years (from 1953 to 1971, except 1956) each song was sung twice by two different people. The festival has been used as the way of choosing Italy's Eurovision entry from 1956 to 1966, in 1972 and 1997.
The Festival is transmitted live on tv Rai Uno in Eurovision since 1955. From 1951 to 1954 it was transmitted only on radio RAI.