Malta Song for Europe 2006

The Malta Song for Europe 2006 was won by Fabrizio Faniello with I Do. The event took place at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. The compères for the contest were Eileen Montesin and Josef Bonello, while Lou Bondì hosted the entertainment part.

The festival was put up by an all-new organization committee and was under even harder scrutiny by the media than is already usual in the country. Thus the audio problems to Fabrizio Faniello (who was given the black-striped microphone instead of the red-striped one with his preferred settings) and those to Ali & Lis (who had a defective, white-striped, microphone) punctually created an uproar of criticism, apart from the obvious anxiety to the performers themselves during the evening. Both songs were performed again at the end of the eighteen-song roaster.

This was the second time there was no jury, all votes to be cast by the public by phone or SMS. A total of 61 947 votes were received, compared to Malta's 400 000 inhabitants. Other parts of the show criticized were the division of the festival into two parts having different presenters (an initiative based on the success of a similarly organized show during Hamilton's chairmanship of the organization board), the impertinence of the media in the green-room during the show, lack of security, the short voting period, the long break before the voting results were announced, unrecorded SMS votes for clients of the competing mobile telephony to one of the show's sponsors (aggravated by the fact that supervisors were only sent to the show's sponsors), and low-quality audio in specific locations for the clients of the local cable company. The show was also transmitted in stereo on the national radio, which reportedly had no problems whatsoever.