In the wake of the Eurovision 2013 voting scandal, the European Broadcasting Union has tightened rules surrounding the professional juries for the 2014 contest. Although juries will still comprise 50% of the final score for each country, individual jury members will be subject to greater scrutiny and transparency.
“Tighter rules and increased openness are important for the Eurovision Song Contest to build on its success,” Jon Ola Sand, the Executive Supervisor of the contest said to Eurovision.tv, “to make sure participants, viewers and fans know that we have done and will always do our utmost to secure a fair result. These changes show that the Eurovision Song Contest is an ever evolving tradition, which continues to adapt to the spirit of time.”
The names of all jury members will be published on May 1 — ahead of each contest. Presumably that move is intended to put pressure on jurors to behave in an ethical way. Being named opens up the opportunity to be shamed, creating a strong deterrent for bad behavior (see allegations here). The EBU is essentially removing the curtains from the jury room to expose any back room deals and to amplify any whispers about vote rigging.
Jury members will not be allowed to participate in the current contest if they have sat on the jury during one of the previous two editions of the contest. That makes it more difficult for any juror to be in the pocket of another delegation. If a nation wants to buy votes, they’ll need to forge new relationships with new jurors. #complicated.
Sand also confirmed that the EBU remains committed to investigate “reports about alleged attempts to unfairly influence the voting.”
“If our investigation brings about evidence of wrongdoing, we will take the required action,” he said.
The EBU will also create a platform on the official Eurovision.tv web site where viewers and jury members can report voting irregularities. We hope the EBU has a full-time secretary devoted to sorting that Inbox….
Do you think the new jury rules at Eurovision 2014 will reduce the likelihood of vote buying and vote rigging? Let us know below!
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Photo: Eurovision.tv (EBU)
There’s 2 things what I consider particularly concerning and should be addressed:
1. Get rid of the jury’s altogether. They are far too easy to bribe and we have seen many times that their votes are not that ‘professional’
2. How on Earth was Sweden allowed to allocate the countries in the final as they pleased last year? That is completely unfair and draw is the only right way to do it.
I wonder who’ll judge for San Marino then. A girl from the local newsagent’s shop?
At least they’re doing something. Next, they need to actually enforce the existing rules (like preventing Italy’s jury from being all male) and revert to 2012’s scoring system to reduce the capability of the jury (or the televote) to completely kill an entry (like Ireland or Montenegro).
1. Five members in the jury is too low. A lot of power in the hands of each of the five and easy to corrupt the final result. Also it is difficult to ensure diversity in such a small panel. And the more to it is the power given to auditors to remove from the panel the juror(s) vote(s) that they find suspicious. This is tricky both ways either they have no intention to make use of the rule or it may lead to abuse. Lets assume a hypothetical case where two of the jurors are not independent – as… Read more »
Well all should know what to expect from a country that is one of the top 5 most corrupt in the world FACT and that its broadcaster that takes part in eurovision is nothing but a propaganda machine for the dictator leader when it has more than 50% of it reports on their website regarding him and glorifying him .. They are using eurovision as a vehicle to spread their propaganda
@takecare – how do you know the Romania/Moldova vote was 12 points televote, reduced to 10 by the jury? I have not seen and breakout between the jury and televote for those countries.
@ anon Did I tell that Im not? 😛 Sorry didn’t know that I had to put Azerbaijan as nickname just to show that my comment is from Azerbaijan. LOL
? Digan lo que digan tu vive tu vida aqui manda siempre el corazon ? 😛
Ok, well it is a step, but this isn’t really enough. What has actually changed? Nothing, other than they are releasing the names and votes of jury members. Big deal! It’s not like the members are actually accountable for their votes. If there is some sort of impropriety, they can still say “well I liked that one best” and end of story. We’re still using a notary to supervise and pretending like that means something. This “change” is like using a band-aid to treat syphilis…it makes people feel like something is being done, but does not address the actual problem.
@ Mike, remember romania gave moldova 10 points in 2010 just because of the jury, otherwise woulda been 12! same happened last year with cezar, getting only 10 instead of 12! and take into account that ro-mo juries dont disconsider a countries song just because of the immigrants there, like spains and italys juries do especially with romania! immigrants in your country are people that mostly belong there, working for your state, paying bills and everything! its their decision who they vote for! greece gets alot of points from romania because of the greek population here mostly, no one complains!
This is gonna a be a tricky horse to shut down: because for the most part, the countries responsable for the ESC huge popularity these past years are pretty much the ones involved in controversy and scandals of this nature. So how will EBU “punish” them if they have been the key to their own sucess? I also agree that the problem does not rely on the juries but pretty much on televote, where the common televoter has no criteia except “i’m from croatia so I vote for the serbian singer because i both understand the language and I know… Read more »
Pero yo creo que realmente el problema viene del televoto,y no de los jurados profesionales.De tadas formas me parece bien,esc ultimamente estaba disvirtuando su concepto inicial unir a los paises.
Tu Vida Es Tu Vida confirmed for Azerbaijani
Good rule, and when we see that the juries of Cyprus/Greece, Moldova/Romania and other couples give each other the highest amount of points for crappy songs I hope ESC will quit some countries for the 2015 contest!
I hope that new rules will shut down some propagandist “ESC fans” who makes drama every year with “countries buying votes” (just bcuz they re not happy with results of their own countries or the songs that they liked) since theres no any proof! But I know that its impossible! Haters gonna hate! They ll find sth else just to show how “asshole” they ARE! 🙂
P.S: Sorry for being rude! But I can’t stand ppl who got such big hatred to any country without any reason (especially when reason is that the country is good at song contest :P)
Why don’t you wait for the investigation results before posting these kind of comments? I’m pretty sure EBU doing something to figure out who is wrong and who is right. It’s very likely that at the end of the day an asshole might be someone posting this comments
This is just basically ebu acknowledging that the suspected countries eg assholebaijan have been breaking the rules ..
We want to know how have ebu investigations into vote rigging are progressing etc ..
It’s a welcome step in the right direction. I’m so glad that our pressure has produced some results! Hopefully these measures will deter jury members from accepting any more bribes.
thats why malta never wins .countries buying votes shame on you .if some country is cought they should suspending them from the contest at least for 5 yrs .
Presumambly ? Well that’s a lovely word, where did you find that? Let’s hope we get no more shady videos of people with briefcases having what may or may not be secret meetings.