Back on February 18 a number of Eurovision fans suffered a small heart attack after the EBU revealed Eurovision’s new voting process and points presentation. It will see national spokespeople present only their country’s jury points rather than their country’s combined jury-televote result. After that is complete, the show’s hosts will reveal the televoting scores.

And today eurovision.de, the official Eurovision news portal of Germany’s ARD, has revealed another twist. They report that hosts will only announce the televoting scores from the ten best scoring countries in the televote segment. Countries finishing in 11th to 26th with the televote will simply have their scores displayed before the nerve-wracking process of determining the winner takes place. Got it?

Eurovision’s new voting segment

The new Melodifestivalen-like voting segment received mixed reviews when it was revealed in February. Some people thought it would bring a fresh element to an old contest, while others thought — and think — that Eurovision is becoming too much like the Swedish preselection.

San Marino even saw the change as an act of discrimination against microstates. Owing to its small population, its televote score will actually be a composite of the results from “a pre-selected group of countries.” So not the San Marinese people.

The EBU and the SVT ensured us that the voting wouldn’t take much longer than the former one. It sounded illogical to many, because now we will have one full round of voting results from all 43 countries and then another segment revealing the televote. Perhaps reading out only the Top 10 televote results is a way of saving time?

Another time-saving option? Make it illegal for spokespeople to thank SVT “for a beautiful show.”

Follow all of our Eurovision 2016 news here

120 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
#Justice4Margaret
#Justice4Margaret
7 years ago

Had Italy won as they deserved to, we’d still have our functioning voting system. SVT needs to stop.

Dan
Dan
7 years ago

Juty always votes biased. They vote based on politics or they disliked Conchita just her for being a transgender. For example, many country’s juries gave nil point to Austria when she was very successful in tele-voting. Another rubbish stuff is that televising was a good chance for countries to give a hand to each other’s when they had problems. That busted disagreements. For example, between Armenia snd a Turkey, Armenua and Azerbaihan, Russua and Ukraine, Russia and Georgia. Many people don’t check the results afterwards. They just watch the game. In these cases countries with disagreements will get more distant… Read more »

mariaaa
7 years ago

If u wanna what kind of televotes will be on ESC, watch this video from Melodiefestivalen
https://youtu.be/u-OLCACwlV8?t=689
This is not exciting, STOP Swedes in ruining Eurovision!

Maya G
Maya G
7 years ago

@Robin: When a song that got a top mark from the juries does poorly with the televote, it makes for an exiciting moment, even if each and every viewer hated it, because then the cards are reshuffled the and it’s possible for a surprising winner to emerge – possibly the song the person at home voted for, or maybe even the song from his own country. That’s my opinion 🙂

from the Internet:
from the Internet:
7 years ago

@Jakob: They even said in the voting explanation video that all countries would be announced one by one, starting with the one that has the lowest televoting score.

… obviously, Björkman doesn’t want the whole world could see how his fosterling hipster-Frans will get his deserved zeros from the televoting… 🙂

Zipp
Zipp
7 years ago

ENOUGH. I Lost interest in Eurovision. After 17 years of passion. This contest, the music, the voting all is lost

Jim H
Jim H
7 years ago

What the hell? This makes no sense. There is now a chance that the winner could be revealed by simply being shown on board, not even being read out by the hosts. How could this happen? Well, very feasibly in fact. Say it’s basically a two horse race between Australia and Russia (for example), after the Jury vote and it seems very unlikely for another country to overtake them. Then suppose the televote results come in and Australia came 12th in the televote result. Then it’s pretty clear Russia will be and this result would be a surprise, it won’t… Read more »

Criticca
Criticca
7 years ago

I see this as a good thing especially for countries like France & UK, where ESC local act support is diminishing. Take 2011’s Blue for example. They placed badly in jury but ranked 5th on televotes yet the Brit tabloids branded them ‘losers’ & proof that Europe hates us. If we take 2016’s system, the perception would’ve been different..

Criticca
Criticca
7 years ago

I see this new change as progressive. Every competing country will feel a good sense of achievement for doing well on either jury, televotes or both at the contest. They won’t walk away feeling awful about their placings.

Criticca
Criticca
7 years ago

Because each year many countries consider placing in the Top 10 of grand finals as a big achievement that’s why announcing who placed within Top 10 televotes is the new thing.

JK Hawaii
7 years ago

It would be salt in the wound to hear your country being called first in a line-up of 26 countries when announcing points: that just means you’ve lost and everyone in the arena and at home know it with the cameras on you. In essence, this is pretty much the change we’ve all been looking for since the introduction of a split vote—both juries and viewers get their equal say without one affecting the other. Although Sweden still would have won last year, Italy would have beat Russia out for the silver. Now we’re getting into a crazy amount of… Read more »

Nick
Nick
7 years ago

After 2013 I had a feeling that SVT’s ‘innovations’ ruined the show and it really was great again only in 2015. And now we’re getting more! Hail SVT!

Erin
Erin
7 years ago

@Jonas – The EBU didn’t release the split ranking of televote and jury per country back in 2013, but the combined ranking figure showed that Denmark’s average jury rank was 6.23 and the average televoting rank was 4.97.

ESCBuddha
ESCBuddha
7 years ago

Totally agree with Robyn… I thought it was stupid in the beginning but then I figured it’s gonna be great seeing results by country with as little of bloc voting as it had in the 90’s… Jury votes, we haven’t seen that a long time 😀

PS Please add option to like a comment 😀

Huh
Huh
7 years ago

Since this isn’t official as of the moment, EBU could have a dry run of this new voting process and voting announcements. Fans would help gain a few understanding how this will turn out. My only concern is when would they do that?

Julian
Julian
7 years ago

Separating televoting from juries like this makes the impression that is only one Europewide televote. Will be strange. And the real problem is with juries because, however they are constrained by EBU rules, they give the high points to the same 8-10 countries which makes jury vote like having no connection with that country. So they are dumping what is really representative for a country, televote, and dumping it to a big, shapeless, basket. And they are highlighting like representative the jury vote for a country, when the past years it was same countries. same countries, with small variety, read… Read more »

Jonas
Jonas
7 years ago

Erin – what do you mean? Emmelie De Forest didn’t top the vote in either juries or televoting? I never could work out the split vote thing that year.

Erin
Erin
7 years ago

Once the jury vote is displayed in its entirety, you can already figure out that the overall winner has to most likely be one of the top 3-5 scoring countries. I don’t foresee an Emmelie De Forest situation recurring where the overall winner doesn’t end up first on either the jury or the televote count, especially since only the top 10 countries are tabulated. However, scoring nul points has become some sort of wearing an honorary badge (if you take it the right way), so it would be priceless to see the faces and the reactions of the entry or… Read more »

Gretchen Wienners
Gretchen Wienners
7 years ago

So now we’re going to watch Euromelodifestivalevision, that isn’t fetch!

Alex
Alex
7 years ago

Robyn has this down precisely right, and moreover Robyn’s explanation should probably be added in the original article… 🙂

Question. Will San Marino’s vote be thrown out entirely, or will it be included among the average of local countries? The latter makes more sense to me.

Fergy
Fergy
7 years ago

The whole point of the new system was to stop people knowing who the winner was right until the end. By only announcing 11-26 in the televote at the end its going to become pretty obvious out of the remaining countries who the probable winner is, so it defeats the whole purpose of the change. And to be honest its rude to the countries from 11-26. 20-26 is fair enough, but 11-19 can be considered ok-ish to decent results for many countries and deserve to be highlighted

Angel
7 years ago

I WANT TO WATCH EVERY COUNTRY CHANGES WITH THE TELEVOTING. IF ONLY WE WATCH THE VOTES OF TOP 10 (ONE BY ONE), THERE WILL NOT BE EMOTION ABOUT THE REST OF THE POSITIONS…

Jonas
Jonas
7 years ago

It’s not like the points from 11th down are not going to be seen at all, they will still appear onscreen. A bit like the two-tier system in use up to last year, where points 1-7 flash up without much fanfare.

I hope that the winner this year, on the first outing for the new presentation, is a simple victory with the televotes matching the juries. Last year, nobody would’ve been pleased. Sweden’s apparent euphoric victory would’ve been dampened considerably by losing the televote – and Italian viewers would’ve felt cheated.

I don’t know about this!

Tom
Tom
7 years ago

Sigh so many people in need of marital aides… Robyn, fantastic rationale, your presentation of the potential pluses of the new system really makes sense. It could flop, but, it’s could also make for riveting television. Let’s see how it pans out this year and then make a judgement. Can we all take a step back back and realise the changes are initiated by EBU, not SVT, coming from a Schlager loathing Non-Swede (ridonck that one needs to even clarify that). Fans were screaming that the east was ruining ESC a few years ago so the EBU initiated the split… Read more »

ESCaddict
ESCaddict
7 years ago

Yes, I like the idea. Personally I could have worked through 26 countries but I understand there will be a lot of people watching who want to go to bed. They just want to know the winner.
The new voting will make the show more exciting, right to the end. Do it.

(@Denis, ha ha. Your comments are right)

mariaaa
7 years ago

Write to SVT here and left your comment about all these bad things they did to ESC ( juries and now this) and to San Marino too, here is their fb page.make them to hear us
https://www.facebook.com/svt/?fref=ts

Mark
Mark
7 years ago

It’s too drastic of a change. It won’t feel like Eurovision anymore. God dam you SVT. Melodifestivalen failed this year and this is just creating an opportunity for Eurovision to fail as well.

erdic
7 years ago

Olga from Latvia, Eurovision is not Swedish toy to be played with it. If they wan to make experiments, they can do that on their Melodiefest, they must leave Eurovision out of their hands
First Swedish mafia installed juries to manipulate with votes through juries and to help bet shops to make more money!
F.ck off Sweden!

MTD
MTD
7 years ago

Lets just hope that next year, the French will organize a better show! And show Sweden (and the Nordics) the door!

Yes, I do believe in a French win! ALLEZ AMIR!

Olga from Latvia
Olga from Latvia
7 years ago

I’m literally starting to hate ESC fans! Why don’t you want a change? Feels like you’re all conservationists or what? Feels like all of you are like 50+ years old. I love that Eurovision is developing. I think it’s a great idea. It was pretty boring to know who’s the winner before all countries have announced their scores. This changes everything, it will be more exciting. If all places would be announced one by one, it would take a lot of time. They would have to pronounce all 16 acts and show their faces. Nobody even cares about them at… Read more »

Olga from Latvia
Olga from Latvia
7 years ago

Not bad at all.

Maya G
Maya G
7 years ago

@Robyn: I see your point, but what about instances such as 2011 when 4 of the juries’ top 5 (Italy, Denmark, Slovenia and Austria) where outside of the televoter’s top 10? I can hear the crowd gasping as they’re declared one by one, especially Italy who won with the juries by a huge margin. Having them all just appear on the scoreboard at once may be quite anticlimactic. So I still think it would be better to announce ALL positions from last to first, with the lower scores announced speedily and without constantly cutting to the greenroom, unless a low… Read more »

Džordž
Džordž
7 years ago

New rule for next year: everyone who doesn’t have at least 500k views at official esc chanel on youtube, don’t even bother coming to the show. Lol xD Honestly, I’m looking forward to se new voting system. But I agree that it’s stupid not to read points of 11-26th place…

Laburnum
Laburnum
7 years ago

I understand why this happened, but if they’re gonna do it like this why even bother with a new voting system? It really is becoming too much like MelFest. MelFest was made for Eurovision, Eurovision was not made for MelFest, the traditional voting system is what kept it special, taking that away makes the preselection look like it is an amazing alternative. 🙁

SpirK
SpirK
7 years ago

Don’t like it. Why can’t they read them out quick? I didn’t see Vienna having a problem of announcing the qualifiers of semi final 1 quickly, so in the same way,.read the televote scores fast. Because there might be a suspense hidden there and we might lose it. Reading every televote scores creates the suspense, the build up they want. If it’s just the top 10 then two minutes after the jury score we’ll already know the winner!

Marc
Marc
7 years ago

Totally agree with Robyn! I guess results will appear on the screen one by one from 26 to 11(something similar to sanremo) and then Mans and Petra will reveal top 10.

Maya G
Maya G
7 years ago

Also, I find it annoying that the votes of just 215 people are given in elaboration and by each country separately while the results of the millions of diverse televoters from all over the continent (OK, OK, and Australia) are just summed up and read hastily. If at all, it should be the other way around: the televote results should be given by country, and the results of the juries – who are a much smaller, homogeneous group of people – should be summed up. I guess the EBU didn’t want to go that way because saving the juries for… Read more »

Maya G
Maya G
7 years ago

This is dumb. It’s very likely to diminish the suspense in the voting, if not this year then next year or the year after that. And how much time will this even save? 2 minutes at best. The new system makes it possible for the interval act to be much shorter, because the juries votes are already ready one day in advance, and they’ll have the entire time the juries are giving their points to calculate the televote result and even double check them, so there is hardly any need for an interval act at all.

Leaf
Leaf
7 years ago

Will this festival still be called “Eurovision” ?
Or we should brace ourselves for more changes, the ironic part is that 10th to 26th place are actual countries that want to sit on the edge of their seat till their country is being called……
I like the change as they were announced in the beginning but they should just tone it down and take it step by step, year by year not just throw it all out at once.

VV
VV
7 years ago

My predcition for draw , because draw decide host and reference group full of members from western nordic countries and SVT like uptempo song for opening and close or song with tehnical inovation
I semifinal
1.Russia
2.San Marino
3.Croatia
4.Hungary
5.Armenia
6.Moldova
7.Greece
8.Finland
9.The Netherlands
10.Azerbaijan
11.Estonia
12.Czech Republic
13.Bosnia Herzegovina
14.Austria
15.Montenegro
16.Malta
17.Cyprus
18.Iceland

For II semifinal
1.Latvia
2.Belarus
3.Serbia
4.Poland
5.F.Y.R Macedonia
6.Lithuania
7.Switzerland
8.Israel
9.Australia
10.Ireland
11.Ukraine
12.Bulgaria
13.Belgium
14.Albania
15.Romania
16.Slovenia
17.Norway
18.Georgia
19.Denmark

Xeph
Xeph
7 years ago

Calm yo tits people. If this change doesn’t end up being well recieved they’ll probably switch back to the old voting format in 2017. It’s a good thing to experiment and attempt to renew the contest, it’s come a long way from where it began in 1956.

Jr esc nl
Jr esc nl
7 years ago

The only people defending this decision on here are the swedish themselves… Come on a little bit more self reflection please? Even people who usually write very positive nice comments on this site have stated that they don’t like this decisions. It aren’t only the regular negative commenters, so maybe those changes are just a bit too much.

EurovisonFan
EurovisonFan
7 years ago

Ugh, this idea is so stupid and annoying! SVT have ruined eurovision! We just have to stop voting for Sweden so they win and maybe they won’t be able to make these changes

Peter Griffin
Peter Griffin
7 years ago

I’m one of the biggest supporters of this new voting system but this is just…plain stupid. It must be a prank, right? RIGHT?

George
7 years ago

What the actual f*ck. SVT stop screwing enerything. What’s next, four semis?

Österrike
Österrike
7 years ago

Sweden needs to go. Needs to go.

Loo
Loo
7 years ago

I believe the running order will look something like this tomorrow:

Semi 1

1. Moldova
2. Netherlands
3. Finland
4. Croatia
5. Russia
6. San Marino
7. Hungary
8. Greece
9. Armenia
10. Montenegro
11. Azerbaijan
12. Estonia
13. Iceland
14. Cyprus
15. Malta
16. Bosnia
17. Czech Republic
18. Austria

Semi 2

1. Ireland
2. Macedonia
3. Switzerland
4. Latvia
5. Australia
6. Belarus
7. Israel
8. Serbia
9. Lithuania
10. Poland
11. Belgium
12. Georgia
13. Norway
14. Albania
15. Denmark
16. Ukraine
17. Romania
18. Slovenia
19. Bulgaria

erdic
7 years ago

Stopd defending Swedes. They did all this mess to Eurovision

Loo
Loo
7 years ago

And for the record. This is NOT SVT:s decision to make. It’s EBU. Do some research before you start to argue.

oli
oli
7 years ago

I don’t think that’s fine… how much time would they save? 5 mins??? that’s really not worth it and the emotion will be very much affected.

If you go to the toilet you can miss the moment when the hosts announce the winner LOL.