The Director of the Eurovision Song Contest Martin Green has released an open letter to the Eurovision community regarding voting queries after the 2025 edition of the show. Released via eurovision.tv, Martin has tackled questions around fairness of voting, advertising from delegations, and the quantity of votes. He also addressed the voting process with their partner Once Germany GmbH.
The letter comes after dissatisfaction from Eurofans and Eurovision delegations, following speculation around abnormal televoting patterns in the public results. An example of this is Israel’s overwhelming televote score in both the Thursday semi-final and Saturday’s Grand Final, following a heavy advertising campaign involving an Israeli government agency.
The letter also makes the point to celebrate Austria’s win — by opera star JJ with “Wasted Love”. The win has been somewhat overshadowed by the outstanding concerns over voting, so it’s important to celebrate the phenomenal entry of the new Eurovision champ.
There is a lot to delve into, so as we always say, let’s do this.
Austria’s Eurovision win overshadowed by voting speculation
Martin Green begins his open letter acknowledging that the EBU have been listening to concerns raised post-contest by fans, members of the EBU and the media. Swiftly from there he starts on a very positive note, congratulating Austria’s JJ and the participating broadcaster ORF for their victory in the contest.
Interestingly, Martin emphasizes that “his performance and song rightly, clearly and validly won the Contest”. In the celebratory moment we get a sense of what is to come, as we launch immediately into the hints that JJ’s victory is not being discussed as the primary takeaway of Eurovision 2025, with Martin stating the purpose of this letter is to “make sure any ancillary conversations do not overshadow this epic achievement”.
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Voting Partners and Compliance
Next we have a hefty section about who the EBU’s voting partners are, what they do and how they work together to make a valid result. The key partners we hear about here are voting partner Once Germany GmbH and Independent Compliance Monitor EY.
Martin describes Once Germany GmbH’s involvement as follows:
“Once Germany GmbH – uses redundant systems [systems with a backup] and multiple platforms to ensure the correct delivery of votes to the central system.
For the Eurovision Song Contest, specially designed systems are used to monitor and prevent fraud. Additionally, more than 60 individuals in Cologne and several others in Vienna and Amsterdam monitor the voting process in each country and maintain direct contact with telecommunication and broadcasting partners globally. All results are verified through an 8-eye principle by the CEO and senior employees of Once, who collectively have over 40 years of voting experience.”
The other partner mentioned is EY, their compliance manager. Their job is to independently verify and authenticate the result. On EY, Martin says the “entire process, including the result calculation of the platform and the voting results, is thoroughly reviewed and verified by EY”.
Diaspora voting and Political Persuasions
Martin goes on to acknowledge that community, diaspora or incidental voting can happen at the Eurovision Song Contest, due to a few reasons including “personal attributes, back stories, geographic affiliations and current affairs”. He welcomes this in some ways, saying it happens in other contests, and that they are open to it. Martin then says that every year the EBU listen to recommendations from the Eurovision Reference Group once they have analysed the data from the voting partners. This will happen in June as it does every year, and will take into account advancements in technology and external influences and how they can affect voting.
A big concern that has been raised by fans and even a Eurovision 2025 artist is that diaspora voting or voting based on current affairs can sweep up quite a large chunk of televotes before a note has even been sung. Many view this as unfair to delegations who sometimes struggle in the contest. There’s a sense among many that this creates an uneven playing field on the road to qualification for the Grand Final.
Ukraine and Israel
There are two key examples that people cite regarding the international political climate. The first is Ukraine. Some suggest that a solidarity vote over the ongoing war have helped them in the contest, with the country getting a huge amount of points every year. There was even an infamous Instagram story from this year’s Croatian act stating their dissatisfaction at this…whilst wearing a Ziferblat t-shirt.
Ukraine has always been extremely successful in Eurovision. They, along with Luxembourg, are the only countries to always qualify for the grand final since the introduction of the semis. But when they secured their third victory in 2022, questions were raised about their colossal televote score and whether they would have won under different political circumstances.
The other example raised is Israel. For the past two editions of Eurovision, Israel have received extremely high televote scores. This year’s entrant Yuval Raphael got 73 more points in first place of Semi-Final 2 than the runner-up Tautumeitas from Latvia. Whilst far from being 100% definitive markers of public opinion, Israel ranked 23rd on the My Eurovision Scoreboard app community ahead of the contest, so its song was hardly a favourite among fans. The massive public vote has led people to question whether it’s fair that people can vote up to 20 times using a single card or phone number.
Advertising rules and fairness going forwards
The last section of Martin Green’s open letter focusses on the Reference Group’s plan to look at the scale of advertising possible by delegations and the quantity of votes allowed per viewer. In regards to the possibility advertising affecting results, Martin says “such promotion is allowed under our rules and acts to celebrate the artists, increase their profile and launch future careers – it’s very much part of the music industry – but we want to ensure that such promotion is not disproportionally affecting the natural mobilization of communities and diasporas we see in all entertainment audience voting”.
He goes on to address the conversation about quantities of votes allowed per person, by saying, “Another example is the number of votes we allow per person – 20 per payment method. This is designed to ensure that audiences of all ages can vote for more than one of their favourite songs and there is no current evidence that it disproportionally effects the final result – but the question has been asked and so we will look at it”.
Interestingly, various individuals have proven they were able to vote more than 20 times using different cards, including a member of Wiwibloggs, and from fellow community media outlet ESC Insight. There were also various cases on social media of people explaining how they had voted many times for Israel as instructed specifically by Israel’s advertising campaign, which mentioned the 20-vote limit.
Key takeaways
At the end of the letter, Martin rounds out by congratulating JJ and ORF again. Whilst we don’t have definitive answers from the letter, there is a pledge to investigate concerns and make changes where deemed neccessary. A new Reference Group will begin their work soon.
The letter suggests an effort by the EBU to be clearer and more open with how it communicates. A major criticism of the communications during and after Eurovision 2024 was that people were left to speculate about whether the EBU was actually doing anything to address the concerns of broadcasters and the public. This year Martin Green hosted press briefings in the morning in the Press Centre, so it is clear he wants to foster a more positive relationship with various stakeholders.
The simple way to ‘look into’ the 20-votes per person factor is to compare the results with how a 1 vote pp would have panned out, which is surely data they would have access to. Taking away repeat-voting would amount to a huge loss in revenue so as a minimum I suspect they’d only consider reducing to 10 pp if anything.
Unpopular opinion: I ask everyone here to be consistent. We were all on-board for televote only voting for the last 2 years. And now that the tele-vote went the wrong way, everyone suddenly wants the tele-vote to be fixed. Why was the tele-vote not broken the last 2 years as well? The issue is not the system. The issue is dissatisfaction with the results. What happens if we change all the rules, and then the country we hate that year somehow wins? You can’t change the rules of a competition to force a desired result. That’s true cheating.
For me it’s not the results as such but the possible manipulation. Last year (and the year before to a lesser extent) the juries were suspiciously unanimous in their 12 points. This year the same happened to the televote. People suspected collusion by the jury (even if just implicit) in the past, and they suspect a campaign to manipulate the televote this year.
I was never on board with televote only because it means ever more people can vote for their own country. And now on top of diaspora, we have a solidarity vote. First for Ukraine, now Israel and Ukraine. It’s not cheating to change rules which don’t work.
Exactly! This is very Trump-ist
Promotion in a music industry is normal they encouraging people to buy the music , but this is music contest which I think is very unfair . They should let people vote freely for their favorite music without any encouragement and force
If Netanyahu himself asks his followers to vote up to 20 times for Israel it’s completely clear to me…
An academic in Ireland wrote a short article a couple of years back pointing out that only a small portion of viewers vote, and most of them only vote the once or twice. Enthusiasts who vote multiple times have a disproportionate influence, (updated piece here: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2025/0518/1513508-israel-eurovision-2025-ireland-public-votes/) There are also still differences between countries as to how voting can take place. For example, UK residents can’t vote via the app or by text. ROTW voting appears to be open for 24 hours. Voting is the issue the EBU must address first. Then it must look at participation so it applies consistent… Read more »
That’s an interesting approach. Have the winner decided by the number of downloads on the night. That way, revenue will go straight to artists and not the EBU.
And the news is…???
Pathetic is an understatement.
Mr. Green, we don’t like you.
What no one is talking about is the fact that almost all the countries that gave Israel 12 points in 2025 gave 12 points to Israel in 2024. That isn’t suspicious???
EIGHT COUNTRIES have asked for review about the voting, the past two winners have called for banning Israel, and somehow there’s not a problem? We almost saw Eurovision die this year, it’s almost like they wanted it to happen. -50,000 points.
1. 8 out of 37.
2. Eurovision won’t die just because you don’t like the result. In fact, it will be reborn when this drama goes away because you finally start boycotting it as you keep promising but never deliver.
9 now.
Don’t forget one of those countries is a huge financial contributor to the contest. 😉
In other words, there’s no story and all the accusations are made up by people who can’t swallow that others may disagree with them. Let’s move on.
When televoting was initially brought in, there was 5 minutes to vote…5 MINUTES! We don’t need 2-3 hours to vote. Plus this will reduce the need for multiple interval acts and also lower the running time.
Well it all comes down to money at the end of the day. I don’t think they will reduce the voting time or the times each one is allowed to vote because it will increase their income.
the smaller window to vote lessens the chance for rigging. it makes sense in a non-profit world.
Can i just say congratulations to UK Estonia Sweden Austria and particularly Germany Abor & Tynna who finished 15th in final but enter the UK charts the latter at 34. The UK know a good dance tune when they hear it. Well done.
Agreed, the best thing for the contest now would be if one of the songs goes on to be a big hit. Baller might just be the one.
Baller was my banger before the contest – and after… So happy for Abor&Tynna
It’s simply pathetic that the EBU once again try to keep Israel in the contest despite the blatant voting manipulation and even worse their use of the contest for genocidal propaganda. They have lost all credibility, are a laughing stock, can’t even appear in front of the fans, who they deem as enemies contrary to how it was some years ago, and all these to please that country. They’d even let the contest get completely destroyed so as to protect Israel.
THAT IS ENOUGH. BAN ISRAEL FROM EUROVISION AND RETURN THE CONTEST BACK TO US FANS
What manipulation? Where? What proof, or even a suggestion do you have for that? EBU seems to be pretty sure the results are valid. Are there many sympathy votes? Yes, for sure, the song didn’t vote the televote on merit. Were some of these motivated by ads? Possibly, though I’m sceptical it’s a relevant number (outside of ROTW where they may have had an impact). But none of that is against the rules, let alone “manipulation” of the results. As long as there’s enough people voting for Israel, Israel will get points. You can’t judge people’s motivations when casting votes.… Read more »
i think we need to scrape the televote for good its causing to much controversy have it just juries again
Or have a public jury made up of nationals of that country alongside the professional jury
the problem with that is your gonna have people from the public being biased to certain types of music
I agree, even the disgraced Jonathan King, who introduced televoting in 1998 when he was the Christer Björkmann of the contest, now thinks it has been “taken over” by hype.
its a shame king did what he did he was talented as a producer and songwriter he should have focused on that and not on kids
Thanks to wiwibloggs and Lucy for addressing this issue so quickly. Martin acknowledges the importance of “personal attributes, back stories, geographic affiliations and current affairs”. It’s clear that these factors are now having too much of an effect on the televote. Not only over solidarity with Ukraine or Israel, but also the frequent dismissal of host entries. It’s just as anomalous that Switerland went from 214 jury points to zero as it was that Israel climbed from 60 to 297. No wonder people talk about those moments and not the winner. The televote, as it is now, it not fit… Read more »
Did you, your family, friends vote for Switzerland?
Plenty of us did at my party!
I’m really starting to believe that the EBU has a hidden agenda regarding “that” country.
So it’s all about the money, right?
The problems started also because EBU allowed Sweden to change the rules of the contest. First, return to open the televote when the last song is finished. One can go on the stage and sing very badly, but people has already voted for that song. Dispespectful of the other singers who sang correctly without mistakes. Second, the 20 votes are too much. 1, or maximum 3 votes each person who votes. Or they can allow to vote 10 times, but for different song with 1 to 8 points, then 10 and 12, like the juries. The system automatically checks and… Read more »
Most of the locals are listening for the first time and usually they just like or remember 1, 2 or 3 songs at best.
That’s how it goes.
Wait, why should Martin Green have to go? This was his first year in a new role created after the horrors of 2024 and why shouldn’t someone from the UK be able to have a say in the matter? I agree the whole Scandi grip is too much and possibly have someone from central Europe…but yeah, Christer and his running orders always are favourable towards his home land.
ROTW is only 1/75 of the points. It brings money to EBU, but doesn’t have much influence on the end results.
Here’s an idea for some decent reform; Israel out for at least 5 years due to their actions. Adding Turkey and Sweden to the big 5, and having a separate semi where they compete for 6 spots in the final (so they still compete, they pay more toward the contest, but have better chances) Work to make it easier for smaller or less wealthy countries to return/continue to compete have a rotating guest entry between EBU affiliates guarantee that the main sponsor is a music related company like Spotify or iHeartRadio you can still vote 20 times but only up… Read more »
Less wealthy countries already pay less
My goodness, give Green a chance! This is his first full year as director, just wait to see what he does
agreed. His 2023 show was one of the best in the modern era.
It will be bad if they bring juries back in semifinals because there will be a place always reserved for Australia among the qualifiers to the detriment of other countries that try hard and will just be missing out from qualifying.
What a pathetic statement.
Hahahahahahah, seriously this is only posted by EBU for us to laugh at. LMFAO
Zero, dot, zero, zero, three…
At least it pays to be funny. (Ugh.)
How about I adapt parts of this letter, turn it into a song and submit it for 2026?
Swedish mafia behind the deets along mobilized voters are leading the contest to its destruction rapidly. And for what? Fame? Prestige? Money? Fake and delulu self-inspiration as if all Europe loves you? 2020s was supposed to be a new era. Actually, a pretty good one. But then we got hit by Covid and war in Ukraine. And, frankly, I can see a pretty bold line of the quality of contest dropping ever since then. By quality I don’t mean the quality of songs but rather overall experience. Back in the days you’d wish Eurovision to never end and were eager… Read more »
I don’t wish to revisit the 2025 results anymore. What I will say is that as Israel is becoming a global pariah state, it will not make it to the 2026 contest whether televote reforms are implemented or not. I don’t hate Israeli people, Russian people or any people as a collective for that matter. I do dislike, resent, ridicule, feel contempt and disgust towards certain leaders and governments. People who openly hate Israel and are having a field day doing that are shallow.
Thanks! Here’s how you can criticize isr, and even hate it’s government – without being ant!semet!c.
It’s really not that hard
They have to remove the 20 vote rule – especially now we can vote from the very first song, as that simply allows more time for people to just keep voting for someone over many hours. I’d even argue putting the voting back to once all acts have performed. If someone is relatively wealthy and has multiple cards, they could vote 60-80 times for one country in that time. Now imagine this done in multiple countries, and what do you know, Israel have a vast amount of public votes in numerous countries. We need a system of 2-3 votes per… Read more »
I wonder whether anyone in EBU has balls
Uk Top 100 singles announced tonight:
31 UK
34 Germany
40 Estonia
48 Sweden
53 Austria
Even if , as stated, the vote is carefully observed for irregularities, I don’t feel this problem can be solved with voting changes. No matter what you do, nearly all who vote for Israel with give a straight max number of votes to Israel. I split my votes between five countries. None of my friends who voted went all in on a single country. When you get concentrated voting, it’s very hard to overcome. No matter what they will be at or near the top.
Just white noise … goodbye Eurovision
… also, can we agree that the Osterdahl era is by far the most chaotic and problematic in the whole history of this show. Whether it’s his fault or not (e.g. pandemic), the number of issues and above all the MAGNITUDE of these problems that just seem to constantly blow out of control is just never-ending. At some point, they have to wonder if he’s capable of managing this show, or if he’s just letting issues fester.
A lot of words to not say much. He’s deflecting on multiple accounts: (1) complaining that JJ’s victory is being overshadowed, which is true, but that’s because they let issues fester over multiple years and are now getting close to blow up. (2) Rambling about the vendors and tech they use for voting: that’s literally not the point, the point is the current systems are being exploited and abused at the expense of everyone else. Tl;dr: I don’t expect much from him.
ISR followed the same pattern last year, voting campaigns to ask to vote for the song, combined with a political message of the song and support of right wing politicians, why would they do the exact same thing again if it’s not working? It’s pure politics, it has nothing to do to do with music. And mr. Green fails to mention the crimes against humanity, but the EBU apparently doesn’t matter.
You’re flagrantly making things up. There is absolutely nothing political with the song’s lyrics. Right wing parties, centrist or non affiliated organizations, associations, congregations or whatever used social media or word to mouth to encourage people to vote. You don’t decide why the televote gave Ukraine more than 400 points in 2022 or 400 points to Loreen by the jury in 2023. I bet you didn’t cry wolf then. You’re worse than an hypocrite.
Netanyahu himself asked on his socials to vote for ISR up to 20 times, even the New York Times wrote an article about it, the same goes for right wing politicians such as Geert Wilders believe what you wanna believe, hon.
BS so next year we will have the same problem again, a lot of words no actions. How can 20 votes pp and expensive voting campaigns not be an advantage, for countries with a big diaspora…?
Why would you conclude that the problem will be the same next year? The article quite clearly states they’ll look into in detail with the reference group this June. That literally means it could be changed if needed.
Israel doesn’t have a big diaspora.
ROTW is only 1/75 of the points,
and in Europe the diaspora is concentrated in France. Very little in other European countries.
“20 per payment method”
That’s where it all starts…
Let’s just make a rule that country involved in bigger militarny conflict can’t enter… Some like Israel and Ukraine at ESC but come on… those wars definetely made bigger or smaller impact on televoting (Israel, especially Ukraine 2022).
So excluding them and depriving them of some escapism during the difficult times,
is more important for you than accepting that your favorite song ends 10th place instead of 9th place?
The difference between countries who have been called out for advertising (Malta, Armenia,Finland etc) and Israel is that they are government sponsored, sending sim cards all around Europe to support voting. If this isn’t bringing the contest into disrepute, I don’t know what is.
Would the IBA ever do this if it was allowed to stay ? It’s very obvious that KAN is a proponent of the government.
* yawn
Martin Green is your typical new manager at work who likes to suck up. Nothing new here. His interviews last year were exactly the same.
Bla bla bla
So it is a massive nothing burger.
It’s just a very brief letter and doesn’t say much or anything I already know. All I want to know , is Israel in or out ?
I think all this means nothing will change and Israel will continue to stay in the contest… it doesn’t seem fair. The only way I can see them trying to suppress Israel’s power is by reverting back to the old voting system which saw jury votes mixed together with televote to create an average, it would mean outliers would find it harder to pick up points if jury or televote disagreed massively.
Makes me so sad to see the EBU describe the contest as “reality television”.
Reality television was not around in 1956.
Maybe it should STOP being reality television, how about that, EBU?
Israel must go out of the contest. The results are rigged. The Israelian song is not the most listened one on streaming platforms, nor the most vieweed one on youtube, BY FAR. So, winning the popular vote is just explained by the doped voting of people politically charged rather than having actual interest in the contest. As long as this continues, Israel will keep arriving doped to the contest, and that’s not fair and a solution must be found.
How useless do you wanna be? Anyone named Martin at the EBU: YES!
Basically, he said nothing. Without proper pressure from big broadcasters and withdrawal of at least 4-5 countries, we will get nothing and Israel will again use all methods to make mess next year again.
Green needs to step down or be removed. These “concerns” have been brought up over and over and he has done little to nothing. He keeps defending the indefensible. His so-called clarifications are an insult to Eurofans’s intelligence.
I think the title of this article is rather suggestive. The problem here is that a number of broadcasters actually protest because they doubt whether that “massive vote” really existed among the public, or because of interference of state agencies and bots.
Green, you’re good to go.
“No current evidence” that 20 votes per payment method is affecting the results? I find that extremely hard to believe. It’s easy to calculate that the number of televotes for each country, divided by the number of unique payment methods/SIM cards voting for that country, and doing so would immediately show which entry had the most, let’s say ‘highly motivated’, voters. Hard to believe that the EBU haven’t already done this calculation (it would take minutes), and even harder to believe that the result would show “no current evidence” of skewed results. They’re preparing the ground for their usual response,… Read more »
It’s mind-boggling how they not getting it.
We all know that the problem with the televote is not of a technical nature, nobody is asking that and I don’t know why the EBU is pretending they don’t realise.
Like an MP no answer to the actual grievance
Martin Green is your typical new manager at work with no real qualities or competencies but will take a fist up the arse for the company to get those sweet benefits.
Surely now Israeli fans will get their apologies after days of being accused of “rigging Eurovision”