Back in July Switzerland’s SRF announced the death of its long-standing national selection Die Entschediungsshow. Ahead of Eurovision 2019, SRF will instead have an audience panel and international jury select the song. This won’t be televised, with the winning song being published at some point after the selection is made.
And today the broadcaster opened the application process for that 100-member audience panel. According to the SRF announcement page, “the 100 people of the panel should best represent the televoting results of over 40 ‘ESC’ countries.” They will be selected “in a multi-stage selection process through online surveys.”
That process begins today with an online survey to assess your taste. We’ve had a look at the questions and don’t want to give anything away, but the intro page is pasted below so you can hear straight from the source.
The survey is available in French, Italian and German. You must be in Switzerland to be considered. But anyone can take the assessment for fun.
Switzerland: Audience panel invite
We are looking for you!
Support us in choosing the next ESC candidate for Switzerland and join the 100-member Eurovision jury!
As part of the jury, you decide from the preselection of the songs to the final vote, which candidate Switzerland will send in 2019 to Israel.
We want to get to know you better. You have to spend 5-7 minutes in which you show us through 2 x 3 video reviews your taste in music.
With a little luck, you’ll even win one of two iPads, which we’re giving away to all participants!
This should all sound familiar, as the Swiss appear to be taking note from Germany. Following years in the Eurovision wilderness, Germany climbed back into the Top 5 this year after working with the firm to develop its own multi-stage selection process involving a series of surveys.
The Swiss survey page very clearly displays the logo of Simon-Kucher & Partners, a leading data analysis and consulting firm. As reported by German media in the past, that’s the firm that developed a special algorithm to help Germany separate Eurovision fans from Eurovision fans with predictive power (aka, “broad European tastes”).
Are you going to apply to be part of Switzerland’s selection panel? Do you think this new method will help give Switzerland life at the contest? Let us know down below!
Czech Republic confirmed participation in the next years Eurovision on their FB Eurovision page 😀
kinda desperate but it might work
I think this could be a good move for Switzerland. Surprisingly, they have quite a big music industry and it’s about time Switzerland got credit for that. Countries such as Spain, Ireland and the UK should try a jury panel method imo.
There is no 100% sure sign, that you have to be Swiss. They write indeed “viewers from Switzerland” on the website, but in the survey itself you have to name the “Kanton” where you live (it is the state) and there is also a field named “Ausland” which means “foreign state”. I have applied as a German today and theoretically they could choose me as well. If they do so, is a big question, but for me they don’t write clearly enough, that you have to be Swiss and the field “foreign state” is there… If I am taken, I… Read more »
Oh I’m foreign and I just picked a random kanton, they probably won’t know
@Erasmus: I think they will need your address as a data when you are in the jury. But I don’t know. We can inform each other how far we come… 😉
You can only apply if you’re Swiss. Sucks :/
Good for Switzerland, but the only point of criticism I can give them is that their song choice for the survey is quite bad. “Occidentali’s Karma”, “Gravity” and “Don’t Come Easy” to pinpoint our music taste? Those are three pop songs… Also quite generic Eurovision ones. For the Swiss part there is more variety, but the songs are dreadful.
You don’t understand the concept… 😉 Those weren’t the right songs. It’s all about testing your taste in music now… The real Swiss songs get only the best 100 😉
If it’s like Germany, they want the panel to mirror the televote patterns of Eurovision viewers. So they’ll want people on the panel who think Occidentalis Karma was pretty good, Gravity was ok and Don’t Come Easy was terrible. Poor Isaiah!
I totally agree!
I also think that it’s way too easy to simply fake it all.
I mean, we all know the results of the televoting and know who was a fan favourite, so why not lie and say you love those who finished high and less loved those who finished low?
It’s also underwhelming that we won’t get to hear the other songs, imagine we only heard Who We Are (San Marino 2018) and didn’t have the chance to know Out of the Twilight…