Originally Posted by Colin Ward
If I was running a song writing contest to maximize my profit, I would award a prize to the top song(s) and make everybody else a semi-finalist or at least give them an honorable mention and encourage them to come back next year because they came so close this year.


Colin, looks like this contest's management already invented that "wheel"-
nobody knows how much folks who entered contest got "letters"
of a happiness" - ie "...you almost won and we invite you to enter next year...cuz you're a semi-finalist, your song(s) is(are) great"
Such a message maybe is sent to each entrant after winners are declared and nobody can check out if this is true.
Here in Ukraine such a business is called "breeding of the rabbits"

http://www.soundclick.com/aleksandrsaltovskiy