Well before YLE opened the demo submission period of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) 2015, they announced that there wouldn’t be any judging panel in the live shows of Finland’s selection for Eurovision 2015. Now, however, they have informed us that the final of UMK 2015 will have a “civil jury”.
We still don’t know who the members of the jury will be. But in an interview with Finnish tabloid Iltalehti, UMK’s producer Anssi Autio said that there will be more than one jury. The juries will represent different types of Finnish people. The jury members won’t be chosen geographically, but by their age and their lifestyles. In the past we’ve had juries of musical professionals, but perhaps this year we’ll finally get some musical un-professionals Wiwi Jury-style?
In the interview Autio also said that the juries were planned since the beginning, but that now was the right time to make the announcement. The juries’ points will have a smaller impact on the results than the televotes. The semifinal qualifiers will be decided 100% by televote.
Wiwi-jury-style?! I’m sorry, but if they don’t toss the high and the low scores, this may very well turn out to be a major fiasco.
I was always imagining what will happen if we have “unprofessional” juries but regular people with some taste of music (or lack of it, nevertheless). It will be interesting to see regular people giving points – after all, they are the ultimate consumers.
Ok, let the Finnish audience choose the finalists, and then the jury will decide the winner. It not allways happen like that, but why not leaving it 100% televoting? Juries are for ESC, not fot NFs.
Well, I guess we aren’t getting Opera Skaala 🙁
It’s UMK meets Gogglebox.. what could go wrong!
UMK or ESC for that matter are and should be equal-opportunity affirmative action frameworks and if a big enough majority or a combined vote determines that the awareness it’s raising overrides other factors, so be it.
Finland change rules like Ireland in 2011 , when someone want to punished Jedward because snippet of song at internet few days before final, and decide no 50 % juries and 50 % then change rules 67 % juries and only 33 % televote, becuase they thought that juries will prevent Jedward victory.
Pertti Kurikkan to win.
This sounds like a disguised attempt to allow that ‘Aina mun pitää’ noise to win UMK