No Change to Eurovision Voting System
As previously mentioned here at Apparel Taco, there has been a lot of speculation this year as to whether there will be any changes to the current voting system for Malmö 2024, or if the 50/50 jury/televote split will remain.
It has been reported that the EBU have confirmed to the Norwegian broadcaster NRK there will be no change to the voting system for Eurovision 2024.
Final Results of the Eurovision Song Contest 2023
Last year’s winner Loreen had a HUGE gap between jury and televotes. While performing incredibly well with the juries and receiving 12 points from 15 of the 37 voting countries, Sweden did not receive the top 12 points from a single country on the televote.
Conversely, Käärijä for Finland received 12 points from only two juries, yet on the televote he received top points from a whopping 18 countries. Finland then placed second overall despite winning the televote.
The national juries with a 50/50 voting split were introduced in 2009 to bring more artistic merit to the contest and to avoid ‘joke’ acts performing well on the televote.
There has been pressure on the EBU, particularly from the Norwegian broadcaster NRK, to reduce the weighting of the jury vote – a hidden jury made of only 5 people per country are currently controlling 50% of the contest. Should they decide the winner, or the paying public viewers?
Do you believe the juries are representing their nations?
Eurovision 2022 Voting Scandal: where six countries juries’ were found to be fixing votes.
There have been many reported instances of corruption and bribery in the juries; exchanging money for higher rankings. I fear while they continue to hold 50% of the vote, corruption and bribery at the Eurovision Song Contest will continue.
I would have welcomed a reduced weighting to the jury vote, not only do I believe it is corrupt it’s impact on the results is unfair. Let’s see what this year’s contest in Malmo will bring and how accurately the juries will represent their nations.
Only time will tell.