The American Song Festival that ran out of Hollywood, CA, in the 70s was legit. I worked for them and we had 27,000 entrants. Songs were judged by music business people that passed songs up to the next level of judging. The top winners were chosen by 20 judges sitting in a room and listening to the finalists in each catagory and voting 1 thru 20 in score. Unfortunatly the really good songs were disliked by some and loved by others so the songs would get a 20 from some and a 1 from others giving it an average of 13/14. The winners would be songs that were pretty good and got a 17 from everybody. The songs that got placed with artists by the judges were usually the ones that were 1/4 finalists. Judges could request the name of the writer from the code # on the tape and after the contest the writer was contacted by judge. The cost was $14.85 for the first category entered (folk, country, easy listening) and $7.50 for each second category. Theory was that if the fee was an even number people would put bills in the envelopes and if postal workers knew there was cash coming through much would end up missing. The odd fee made people send in checks or money orders. Contest went on for a number of years but after a while the same people ended up being finalists year after year and entries fell off.