The EBU is currently consulting with delegations about whether it should make changes to the Eurovision voting system. That’s according to Toñi Prieto, the Entertainment Director of Spain’s RTVE.
In an interview with vertele!, Prieto said the EBU is doing its research and reaching out to stakeholders for their take — a reality that has us on the edge of our seats.
She said: “The EBU is considering a change to the voting. They are thinking and talking with the delegations to understand how we see it — if you must have a jury, or only a jury, or only a public vote.”
The jury-televote split, whereby each half accounts for half of the score, has been under increased scrutiny in recent years over disagreements in the their respective rankings. In 2015, Il Volo famously won the televote, only to come sixth with the jury. Sweden’s Mans Zelmerlow — a distant third with the public — won the jury vote in a landslide. In 2019, televote winners KEiiNO finished just 15th with the jury.
Music is made for the people, not necessarily the professionals, and the jury drag isn’t lost on artists. Piero from Il Volo told Wiwibloggs that he thought the jury vote should only count for 20% of the overall score. Tom Hugo of KEiiNO has said he’s not a fan of the current system either, adding: “It is subjective what is good and bad, and then it is strange that a few people should sit and decide half of what a country should give as points”.
Of course, there are plenty examples of the drag happening in the other direction. This year North Macedonia won the jury vote, only to be pulled down the leader board by a poor televote.
In reality there is no perfect system. The juries are thought to provide a balance to bloc voting and to be able to see past regional alliances. On the other hand, they’re also more easily corruptible. And then there’s the reality that their name goes beside their vote — they have to worry about how people (at home, in their local music industry, at work) will perceive their votes after-the-fact. They may vote ‘safe’ rather than voting with their heart as so many televoters do. As ever there is also one very thorny question: Should five people on a jury have the same power as millions of televoters?
Let’s face it: Recent jury blunders haven’t helped their reputation. In 2016, after the first major results presentation change since 1975, a Danish juror admitted that she submitted her votes in reverse order. Fast forward three years, the results presentation changes again, and the same thing happens again. And again. And to add insult to injury, the Belarusian jury points were completely upside down, which caused plenty of mayhem.
"The televote are the people who buy the album, the televote are the people who come to the shows." In 2016, a year after the juries cost @ilvolo the #Eurovision win, @piero_barone told us the televote should count for 80% of the result https://t.co/q3JSO4PEuI
— wiwibloggs (@wiwibloggs) October 22, 2019
Our readers appear to be split on the matter. Some definitely want the jury to remain. On Twitter @newsreader_360 writes: “It usually was the televote that made ‘circus acts’ win eurovision, Coutries with a large diaspora always ending top 5. Neighbour voting is worse in televote. The only reason Norway won the televote this year is because the got 12 points from neigbours in north-west europe.”
On Insta, we saw several comments where people said they want to keep the juries, but to lessen their power.
On Instagram ricknazarian writes: “Either 60 percent publicly and 40 jury or increase juries to 10 people. Not fair that 5 people have the same influence as a country.”
josipajopaercegovac said: “90 % televote 10% jury …we wait entire year for Eurovision and we even pay for our votes that’s why I think our votes should matter more.”
What changes would you like to see in the jury-televote system? Let us know down below.
One has to only look at the highly qualified and very reputable Wiwi-Jury to see the diversity in opinions. Deban can love a song, give it a 10, Ed will give it 4, and Will a 1 .. I mean diversity is what counts. How to truly stop the juries voting for a shitty song just because it’s your neighbour, that is the question. And how to stop scandalous regular occurrences like the exchange of zero’s between Armenia and Azerbaijan, or the exchange of 12s between Greece and Cyprus is something the EBU cam look at. Maybe it’s a simple… Read more »
Does anyone out there also find it strange that near the end of the televoting one of the last countries will strangely give a song with zero points a few points? And everyone cheers. That prooves that the voting system is a fix.
Someone missed the German memo this year, then.
one thing that nobody has mentioned is that lately a few winning songs have been a big hit around Europe before going on to win Eurovision . I think this also has to stop because it gives them a massive advantage over other songs that have not been headed before. Thus getting votes from many people who have heared the song in bars and clubs. How on earth is that fair?
That is the point of a good song! Any artist that can get their song on radio has a good song, and should be rewarded. What do you suggest? Banning an entry because it manages to chart in a few countries before Eurovision. I am sorry, but I disagree with your comment.
Why do we have to sit and watch those idiots making fools of themselves giving their votes when we all know that all the countries vote for their neighbours. That part should be scrapped it’s just a waste of time watching them doing the same every year. Spain gives Portugal 12 points and visa versa and so on…. Why oh why must we be forced to watch that every year??
Of course we want 100% televoting… Juries have done crimes… As we saw from last decade televoting is not unjusting the west.. Which was the reason they were created…
So then Turkey,Armenia, Greece, Russia, Romania, Azerbaijan. will always be in top 5 like last time. I dont get why you want that again?
Yes rasmus. You are absolutely correct. If it continues the way it is one of those countries will win every year
I’m so late for this lol. Why would we need to change it? 50/50 Jury-Televote is already perfect imo because it’s balanced out the disagreement between Juries and Televoters without losing points. Sure, robberies and politics always happen, but just take it for granted. Remember all the masterpieces Jury saved like Maja Keuc, Eugent Bushpepa, Harel Skaat, Gabriela Guncikova, etc. Maybe restructuring the juries to more broader taste/professional person like some other comments said would be a good idea
I can see a lot of smartheads in the comments trying to find new unnecessary additional rules for the voting.
We cannot change the rules of the contest every two years, because of some whiny countries like Spain that can’t accept they are not good enough.
Don’t try to forcibly find solutions to problems that don’t exist. Things have been good enough the way they were.
Tyuk. Are you sure you are watching the same contest? If you think the rules are ok then you must be the only person who does. It’s an absolute shambles every year. Each country votes for their neighbours. It’s not a vote for the best song at all. Go on YouTube and watch the voting and you will see for yourself that their voting is the same every year. Why must we have to go through that drivvel every year?
I would back The system used in 2009 – to mix pointa from juries and televoters together as one score. There was a balance between bloc voting of televoters and anti-bloc of juries.
Or maybe to create one group of jury consisting one person from every country (and that person wouldn’t be allowed to vote for her own country) and make one score from jury and other scores from televoters from each country.
Anyway I would keep juries but we need just change proportions.
I’m going to presume those calling for a return to 100% televote are too young to remember the ridiculous bloc voting that took place in the 2000’s which is what led to a jury being re-introduced in the first place.
Agree 100%. Horribe times. for 10 years some countries gave their top 3 for exactly the same 3 countries. Like Albania for NorthMacedonia,Italy,Greece. An example of many.
Lets also not forget that we probably would lose both Italy and Austria long term since juries are the reason they decided to return. Both left when they realised it was more about spectacle than anything else. Same thing would happen again
Well, the juries are just as bad in that regard. I mean, literally, Azerbaijan’s and Armenia’s musical “professionals” just happen to find each other’s song the worst each year? Cypriot and Greek juries voting each other the best?
I agree we need more jurors, but what we really need is to limit televoters to one vote per person. Why should people with more money have more voting power? That’s not really democratic, is it?
Same as investing money through gambling to create favorites
Idk about juries, but stop the bookmakers, they spoil the contest!
How exactly do you propose stopping people from betting on anything?
It depends on gambling laws which differentiate between countries.
I could live without the juries. Having said that, reducing their proportion of the vote would be better. 33% would work for me.
Most important thing that needs to be done is removing app-voting. Any public vote that is cast for free is meaningless and open to abuse.
But app-voting isn’t free, at least not in my country (Israel), and I’m pretty sure it’s like that everywhere.
The Eurovision app gets access to the built in text messages app on your phone and sends the vote through it, with the same cost of just texting your vote without using the app.
The only solution i would have is to increase the number of jury members to broaden the musical genres and age groups.
if the jury was taken away all together it would just cause more problems, Take Australia for example.
The jury sees australia’s talent and gives points accordingly. But every single year, the televised bring down their score. why? because they don’t like australia being in eurovision.
Yes, some juries do neighbor voting but it is definitely not as bad as televoting.
To be fair, the entries Australia have sent in the last five years have all been the sorts of entries you’d expect a jury to like.
‘Hey you, it’s me again’
Australia 2017,2018, Sweden 2018 and2019 lost so many points from televote, because people dont vote for that countries, because Sweden from 2012 and Australia from 2015 was pushed so hard in points from juries.
On one hand, I hate the juries for ranking songs like Montenegro 2013 criminally low, but I like the state of the contest recently, and like the winners. I do think that jurors should have to be qualified, there are too many novices and there should be at least 10 from each country.
Just because spain came last ? oh lets be serious .. esc i so much more interesting since juries are back and winners are on another level thant in the ezrly 2000 … keep the juries please !!!!
Israel was last with jury
A revision of the current system may be a good idea, but i certainly don’t want to go back to all televote. After all, jury’s were introduced for a reason.
If they were to change the voting system, here are the 3 best ways to do that IN MY OPINION 1. Keep the 50/50 split of points but ncrease amount of jury members so that it could represent different age groups and artist of different genres 2. Add a superfinal where the top 3/5 perform again and only the televote counts as 100% of the vote 3. Jury and televote should be 50/50 in the semis and more power to the televote during the final. Though this would lead to block voting being even stronger since televote tends to be… Read more »
OMG a superfinal would be so intense, I wouldn’t be able to watch.
I actually quite like the system as it is right NOW, because it is the best (not perfect) compromise.
For me the bigger problem is the amount of time People are allowed to vote; the fillers up to 30 minutes in the grand finale really hurt the show. Bring it back to 10 minutes and continue with the show.
The witchhunt against Sweden begins again for the 5th year in a row….. This is sick if you read the comments.
When our mello season starts 2020 there will only be complaints that we have 28 generic songs and when we choose our song there will only be complaints that we chose the most generic one and if we get 1 point of the jury there will be only compaints that we bought the jury. Im so tired to hear the same thing every year in this blog. Here in this blog are the most negative people in the world.
You need to learn to chill. Sweden’s track record should speak for itself.
I get mad reading comments that Sweden should fail big time 2020 EVEN when the season hasnt even started yet. That trigger me.
I think we’ve got the wrong type of jury. We need people who understand the contest and is prepared to work hard to get to know all the songs. The evidence has been that many just don’t bother. Then again a televote won’t do, because I don’t think too many of those voting are going to bother to sit through 26 songs and then make a judgment. They’re probably going to vote of the favourite and / or those songs which come close in the order to that of their own country. My solution: form a Eurovision Academy and let… Read more »
Same voting , 50% juries 50% televote. but increase jury members from 5 to 16 (we had 16 members in 80s,90 s) 4 groups 16-25, 26-35, 36-45, 45-60 (2 woman, 2 men in groups). It s not fair to 200-215 people (40-43 countries) have same power like millions televoters. With 5 members decrease power of juries from 50% to 33%. Change running order to be like before 2013 , no producer to decide. Cut parade of nations in final (to many minutes lost) .Sometimes I didn t understand some voting of jury members. Example in same semi jury members put… Read more »
Jury power should either be less extensive or completely gone. They were added to a void bloc voting and political influence and increase the music quality, but it’s obvious that in past editions that they are doing the opposite. The bloc voting is still present, the political influence is extremely high and the music quality hasn’t increased. The shows, or the songs in the shows, are nowhere near as fun as they were before. I feel like they are written for radios only and for the artists to gain fame, rather than to represent their country and culture. Most of… Read more »
They are not doing the opposite, and based on the comments here it’s obvious to no one except you. There are some countries with biased juries, weirdly they are the same countries where televote is also biased to neighboring vote (Russia/Belarus, Serbia/Montenegro, Greece/Cyprus, etc.). So based on your reasoning we should also scrap televote?
Also if you don’t think music quality has increased, you and I can’t understand each other.
Juries are definitely needed to halt the televoting which tend to give high points to flashy performances and the media hype entries.
I’ve watched every single ESC since 1991 – since introducing the split vote, the music quality has sky rocketed. My issue is juries appear to vote for who they believe they “should” vote for – Sweden for example has benefitted significantly from the juries the last two years, Australia’s place in the 2017 and 2018 final was questionable. I tend to agree with the people calling for larger juries to smooth out anomalies. I also think the juries should vote on the live shows not the dress rehearsal so it’s the same performance being judged. Surely it’s achievable?
What about Sweden in 2007-2010? 2013? 2016? 2017? Did we benefit then? in that case we didnt watch the same show.
In both 2013 and 2017 Sweden came 3rd with the juries, which was higher than their televote score.
In 2007 there was 100% televote.
In 2008 the juries saved Sweden from being relegated in the semi, but the final was 100% televote.
2009, 2010, 2011 and 2016 are the only instances where the juries ranked Sweden lower than the televote, though in 2011 and 2016 they were still within the top 10.
Then I guess you did watch a different show. 2007 was 100% televote. In 2008, Sweden only placed 12th in the SF and should not have qualified, but was saved by the juries. In 2013 juries placed Sweden 3rd even though the song was mediocre (and crashed with the televote). 2010: 11th with juries and 9th with televotes so the placing was similar, but juries gave more points than voters (76 vs. 64). 2016 result was similar (but combined result bumped Sweden up the scoreboard). 2017, juries again bumped up Sweden (3rd with juries, 8th with televotes). If you’re trying… Read more »
In 2013 Sweden was 3rd with juries and 18th with televoters
Yes, that’s clearly benefit
I’m a huge Sweden fan, I go to Melodifestivalen, I’m going next year. Sweden is one of my top ranked countries of all time. I don’t have time for the Bjorkman-bashing that goes on here on Wiwibloggs, I just think juries often give its songs votes because there’s a sense that it is the yard stick to measure all other songs in the contest against.
I agree, and I’d like to add one more thing: the jurors should not watch the show together. I’m quite sure that very often, even without intending to, some jurors can create a certain dynamic in the viewing room, because of being influential in the local music industry or just vocal and opinionated, and that could benefit some songs and hurt others.
Well, the whole idea is crazy! The jury and televote are SUPPOSED to disagree – otherwise why have both?
50/50 system is not bad, however the influence of one jury member is way too big, when their number is only 5. Let the broadcaster select a panel of 12 jurors and the points of two of them with the largest standard error from the televoting are excluded.
Scrapping the juries entirely isn’t the way to go, but we need to address a known fact which is that a minority of juries commit ‘targeted counterfeit’ against one or more countries. Instead of judging a song by artistic standards like they are bound to do, other tactical considerations come first, such as deliberately ranking a country lower if it’s perceived as a threat to their own country’s chances of winning. Other considerations can be geo-cultural, political and even sordid in nature. Usually there is no way to penalize or make juries accountable for collusion unlike clear violations of the… Read more »
Yes, 100% televote, it turned out that people are less biased then ”juries”.
How do you then explain that all the turks in Europe voted for Serhat who is a turk? haha
How do you know that?
Ignorance is bliss?
So every Arabian voted for Mahmood?
ugh a racist
My proposition… 1. Make an aggregate jury, and don’t reveal each juror’s individual – to avoid the national attachment and avoid the corruption that the transparency gives. Instead of averages, it’s just a point total. (ie if a song gets 12, 10, 10, 8, it gets 40pts ). Also, like … train the jury ??? so they don’t make catastrophic blunders?? 2. Reduce the jury’s sway – for example, 40% instead of 50%. This can be done by just reducing the points (ie the song that got 40 points would get 32 pts). 3. Switch the reveal/presentation of jury and… Read more »
I think that the current presentation of the scores is actually better. Now we receive the jury scores first and the televoting scores (mostly the countries in the top 10) feel like making the final decision and having a bigger impact overall. Ukraine 2016, Israel 2018 and Netherlands 2019 suddenly taking the lead because of the televoting in the end.
How about the EBU give an extensive course to the jury on how to vote . For goodness sake how hard is it to rank 42 or so countries in order of your own preference and then do it for 26 countries in a final. It’s hardly rocket science but every year they let the village idiots out and there seems to be some sort of scandal.These people are supposed to be supposed music experts. I sometimes wonder how they tie their shoelaces in the mornings if you can’t rank songs from hate it to love it . Is voting… Read more »
Personally, I don‘t think there‘s something wrong with having juries to help acts that aren‘t very common. On the downside, in recent years it appears that juries only have empathy for Swedish entries and/or with Swedish composers. The ESC has, in my opinion, two major issues: 1. the voting system itself: the fact that only the ten most voted entries from a country are appearing in the overall voting is odd. All the votes need to be included in the overall voting procedure. On the other hand, I would increase the numbers of juries per country and would delete the… Read more »
Who was not been at the edge of their seat this year? Jury and televote make ESC great TV, has a huge entertainment and excitement value – and it keeps the music in check so the whole thing doesn’t turn into pure gimmicks on the night! Why ruin all this? It works! Sometimes one would wish for a diffeent winner (I hoped for Italy and North Macedonia this year – who cares) Hey-ho – the contest works!
Is this because of fishy Sweden? Hope so
Yes we are fishy. Christer has helped countries because he likes helping and they have all asked him for help. why? because they dont know how to organise a good ESC. so if Sweden quits and all swedsih people stop helping i think you will regret what you just said. be gratefeul!
LOL, such a funny guy this Rasmus
I think juries should exist but their criteria when rating a song should change so that non generic good quality original songs get their chance to place high. Also I suggest we keep the same voting announcement system as in Eurovision 2019. But by lowering the jury percentage, a good part of the excitement of the night which is the revelation and combination of votes is cancelled which is something I personally don’t want!!!
Juries have elevanted the music and performance quality of the contest, that is a fact and there is no doubt about it. They MUST continue. That the jury system should improve – yes, I thing there is quite a lot of evidence suggesting that. Start by having more members (I would even go above 10) and make it easier for them to rank and/or vote. It’s pretty obvious that some of them are struggling with the system. Maybe give a little bit more weight to the public (60% max) could be a possibility for more democracy. Finally set up three… Read more »
You can’t have more than one winner on stage, the people watching would get confused and it would take a lot of time.
They would go on one at a time. Have you not watched the 1969 contest?
Well, only the main winner would get to perform the song and with a good explanation that could be solved. It is confusing at is already. On time, maybe we could skip the long and imo useless flag parade in the start of the show.
I agree that it would be a nice touch to give different trophies for the Jury Winner and the Televote Winner. As long of course we still have only a big champion getting to the stage to receive the crystal trophy and perform again. I would go further and also announce the Marcel Bezençon winners during the final, right after the voting was closed. This would highlight more artists. This year, for example, we had the Netherlands winning the big prize and MB’s press award, North Macedonia winning the Jury (though we know what happened…), Norway the televote (and sadly… Read more »
Having more than one winner defeats the whole purpose of the show. If you are meant to have one winner, then why award three? That would only confuse people. The question of who the real winner is would be asked. And who would host it the next year?
The winner should of course be the act that gets the most combined points from both jury and voters. Everything else doesn’t really matter.
But Denis, I wrote that I still think we should have just one champion and it will be the one combining televote and jury. Acknowledging the fact that other entries received a lot of praise from particular groups wouldn’t take anything from the winner. There are plenty of ways of making it work without confusion. Just interview the artist in the green room and give them an award. It will still be pretty obvious that the big champion is the one performing in the end.
It would still confuse people. And it would take away from the actual winner if he has to share it with others. Because then the spotlight has been taken. It would make winning completely meaningless.
The winner should be the only one getting praise, if someone wins jury or televote is pointless unless they win the whole thing. If everyone gets awards it would raise the question whose win is more worthy
I don’t think so. It would not take away the winner. Only the actual winner would perform the song and by that it would be very clear who the big winner was. Anyway, the system as it is pretty confusing for the non-experts, this could clarify the matter and give some deserved visibility to the televote winner, similar to what the jury winner gets.
I do think unfair to all if everybody gets awards. Like people would no doubt start to question if the winner is indeed the rightful winner since he didn’t won televote for instance Take this year for instance. If they gave awards to both North Macedonia and Norway for winning each group it would seem as if they won the whole thing and people got excited. Meanwhile Duncan who actually won would wonder if he deserved to win since he didn’t win both groups. Not to wonder that he would be robbed from the spotlight he deserved. That would devalue… Read more »
Well, people already question if the winner is the rightful winner. Nothing will change that. Sadly, even the perfect system with the most accurate and honest voters wouldn’t stop people from complaining. But OK, I see your point about avoiding fueling these complaints. What I don’t get is why you think it would steal the spotlight from the winner. An olympic champion isn’t overshadowed by two other people in the podium. An Oscar winner movie is not overshadowed by winners of many other categories (though some certainly would deserve it :D). Why an Eurovision winner would lose the spotlight, considering… Read more »
An actual podium like in sports would be a great idea. Everybody undestands that concept, it would be very clear who the winner is. We already have the flags parade. Why not the podium at the end?
The problem I see with a podium is that since the winner reveal is saved for the very last moment for ratings purposes, it would be very rushed. Also, it could lead to some awkward reactions. For example, if the second place gets more praise from the audience than the actual winner. In Eurovision, at least the artist is allowed to say some words and sing again the full song, but I’ve been noticing how unpolite some reality competitions are. Sometimes they announce the champion and just a few seconds after that the credits are already rolling. They spent a… Read more »
Unfortunately, people already do question, including the respective artists, which I find most unelegant. Since EBU decided to split the two votes in the show, there is now way around it.
Yes, absolutely, Sabrina! Fully agree, and yes, only the big champion would get to perform its song
The guy in the video that called it slave voting because we dont have 100% televoting is on another planet.
And Scandinavia maffia dont exist. Lordi,Rybak Lorreen,Emelie,Måns, won becuase Europe liked them the most.
Patricia Kaas was 17th, Maja Keuc was 22nd. Do you really think televoters can vote? i dont!
Yeah, and Robin, Benjamin and John definitely deserved top spots because they were one of the best acts in their year…not -.-
it was the televoting i was talking about. You are just a swedish hater. you only see SWEDEN. you dont care what we send. right?
Well mans didn’t win the public vote so leave him out. There isn’t a scandinavia mafia and that is not what people are saying, but sweden coming top 5 with juries a lot is weird.
And Netherlands coming 11th place to year in a row? Northmacedonias coming in 12th place in JESC 8 times? so? You know that people here hate Sweden because we are good. Its the truth and the sad truth. We cant be San marino , sorry.
You are just biased. It is not logical for a country to be every year in the top 5 of the jury vote with whatever they send. It is suspicious. We don’t hate anyone.
I am also in the “Keep the juries, but upgrade their criteria” club. My suggestions for making the jury voting better: 1. Up the number to 10 and keep them “in the shadow until the contest ends. 2. Diversify them in age and genre affiliation. 3. Mix the jury members who are usually tied with ESC with those who aren’t. 4. Make them contractually obligated to read the (translated) lyrics and to hear each song at least three times prior to rehearsals. 5. Make them rate each song rather than listing them. The combined score would be the list (Thanks,… Read more »
Don’t like last point. I can already see giving 12 points for all friends and 1 to hated ones. It would help with messing around rather than prevent it/
Please proofread this article. It’s good and informative, but having to go back and reread because there are typos and you want to understand what the author says is just a hassle.
Juries should be more than 5 people. Wasn’t it 10 in the old days? And they should only pick 10 favourite songs, rather than rank them 1-26. Stops things like Armenia and Azerbaijan deliberately putting each other 26th.
So, like 2009-2012, basically? Kinda dig that system.
Jury vote has to stay. Televotes didn’t always choose worthy qualifiers. And ask different types of musicians to be in the jury team, not just some radio station show hosts who always love radio pop songs.
There has to be two winners. The main one decided by the combined vote and the other awarded some kind of a People’s Choice Award (televote only). Keiino deserved their minute in the spotlight in the Grand Final.
Would not have minded a Norwegian win this year – HOWEVER jury vote must stay! That’s part of the excitement on the night! Don’t ruin it!
I don’t like Juryvoting. Juryvotjng is more political than televoting
Funny how you get downvotes for true statement.
Jury definitely must stay. Norway winning this year would be a huge mistake.
I would make the jury team bigger, like 10 people at least, in order to avoid possible bias. Also, EBU strongly needs to step up their control over how some countries are voting (Armenial/Azerbaiyan cancelling themselves out, Cyprus and Greece exchanging 12 points, …). And maybe explain better or clarify the rules to the jurors so they don’t vote in reverse order…
Just make some restrictions while juries are being picked. Being TV host or dancer having one “hit” in 70s. shouldnt be enough
Another improvement would be to not let the prequalifiers vote in the semis. The public in the Big 5 countries isn’t interested, as we can see in their tele vote results in the semis, which is completely hijacked by diaspora.
5 people having the same amountt of power like millions at home is ridiculous! Increase the jury members or make them have less percent of the vote!!!
just let the people decide. No jury. . And to give the UK and the other big five a chance. The very idea of the big five needs scrapping.. The other countries who have already been taken out. Will not vote for them. That’s why France Spain Italy Germany and the UK. Haven’t won for years
Being prequalified isn’t big enough an advantage? They are free to join the rest of us in the semis.
Keep it 50-50. It will ensure a balance. Withou the juries the quality will reduce. But if you are considering a change. Made the juries more diverse (old,young,diffrent ethnicity if there any…)