The Song 1

The Song 1 was the debut edition of the The Song. It was held in Dublin, Ireland as it was the host's country chose 3Arena, for all the 3 shows, while Brooke Scullion and Nicky Byrne were selected as the presenters.

The format of the competition consisted of 3 shows: 2 semi-final rounds and a final. The 46 competing countries were divided into two semi-finals, with twenty-two compositions in each. From each semi-final, the 10 most voted songs qualified to the final. The rest were eliminated from the competition. The host country, Belgium, Italy and Sweden were auto qualifiers, bringing the total number of competing entries in the final to 24.

Location
For further information see Dublin

Dublin is the capital and largest city of Ireland. Situated on a bay on the east coast, at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster and the Eastern and Midland Region. It is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 census, it had an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the traditional County Dublin as a whole was 1,347,359. The population of the Greater Dublin Area was 1,904,806.

There is archaeological debate regarding precisely where and when Dublin originated, with a settlement established by the Gaels during or before the 7th century CE, and a second, Viking, settlement, following. As the small Kingdom of Dublin, the city grew, and it became Ireland's principal settlement after the 12th century Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The city expanded rapidly from the 17th century and was briefly the second largest city in the British Empire after the Acts of Union in 1800. Following independence in 1922, Dublin became the capital of the Irish Free State, later renamed Ireland in 1937.

Dublin is a contemporary and historical centre for Irish education, arts and culture, administration and industry. As of 2018 the city was listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network (GaWC) as a global city, with a ranking of "Alpha minus", which places it as one of the top thirty cities in the world.

Presenter
The Irish broadcaster announced that the first ever presenters for the show would be  Brooke Scullion and Nicky Byrne. They covered all 3 shows.

Pre-Qualification
In the run-up to this contest, the European Broadcasting Union finally started to grapple with the explosion in the number of potential participating countries. For the first time, a pre-qualifying round was introduced, but only for countries that were the nine last countries to confirm their participation. In the meantime, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Monaco, Lebanon, San Marino, Slovakia and Slovenia were left to battle it out in a special competition called Pre-Qualification Round on May for the mere two places available at the semi-finals in Dublin.

Semi-final allocation draw
The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 19 April 2021. The forty-six countries were divided into six pots, based on their geographical place. Each time a country was drawn from the pot, its semi-final was determined.

The six pots were the following:

Participating countries
Forty-three countries participated in the first edition of the contest. The submissions for the first edition opened on 18 May 2022. Every country should choose their broadcaster for the contest. The contest started in May. As the rules say, if the country will select internally their entry or by a national selection. The Deadline for the entries submission was on 30 May 2022.

Other countries


Countries that are active members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are also eligible to participate in The Song. As in every edition, an invitation to all the members have been sent in order to confirm whether they will participate or not. The following list of countries declined stating their reasons as shown below.

Active EBU Members

 * : On 18th of May 2022, the Croatian Hod of Delegation announced that the country will not attend to participate in the first contest and apologise to the EBU for including them in the allocation draw.

EBU non-members

 * : Kosovar media reported that RTK was hopeful that they would debut in The Song in Ireland. In an article published by RTK the Director of Television at the Kosovar broadcaster stated that he had received the support of national broadcasters across the Balkans to participate in the competition. However, both Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia had opposed such participation. The EBU then sent a letter to RTK explaining that Kosovo cannot participate in The Song, because it is not a UN member and it is not a fully recognized state.