I do like what ariich did there, giving a penalty for songs he knew and liked. That could be a good incentive to prevent people intentionally doing that, as unknown songs the judge likes would suffer no such penalty.
This is Draft #1, though it is pretty rough. But I've got several months to refine it based on the ensuing discussion and my own ruminations.
Three judges, 11 rounds. The first 9 rounds will be split among the judges, which I will call Judge A, Judge B, and Judge C.
Each round all three judges will listen to and score the songs, but the scores will be weighted depending upon which judge the round belongs to. The host judge will score out of 15 and the other two will score out of 5, for a total of 25 each round.
There will be a banned list from each judge in effect during their rounds, but also a banned list which will be derived from the individual lists, which will also be in effect. For the sake of simplicity, I will make several banned list combinations so that each round, the participants need only reference one list to figure out what they can send - it will just be a different list for each judge. Songs that each participant sent in roulettes in the past calendar year may not be used again in this Championship, however they may send other songs from those artists.
There may at times be artists on a judge's personal banned list which do not make it into the two combined lists for the other judges' rounds. In the event a participant sends such an artist, their score will be penalised by that judge.
The first round of each judge will be open, but the other two may (or may not, at the judge's discretion) be themed. The judges will make up their own themes.
The roulette would then run like this:
1. Judge A first round (open)
2. Judge B first round (open)
3. Judge C first round (open)
--Eliminations--
4. Judge A second round (possibly themed)
5. Judge B second round (possibly themed)
6. Judge C second round (possibly themed)
--Eliminations--
7. Judge A third round (possibly themed)
8. Judge B third round (possibly themed)
9. Judge C third round (possibly themed)
--Eliminations--
10. Finals, round 1 (open)
11. Finals, round 2 (open)
The number of people eliminated at the first two elimination points will be determined when we know exactly how many people will be participating. Only three people will make it beyond the third elimination point, into the finals.