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Guidelines for jury composition
Eurovision voting change: details in December
When will the reference group finalise plans for the 2009 voting procedures?
"The group will meet in December again, in Moscow, to finalise these plans. After all, the changes have to be implemented in the rules!"
Has the date of the next reference group meeting been set?
"At the moment, there are several options, but the group will probably meet in the first two weeks of December."
Will the EBU provide guidelines on how jury members should be selected, or will that remain at the discretion of the individual broadcasters?
"Decisions on the exact way the juries will have to be composed will be made during the December meeting. Of course guidelines will be provided, to assure a fair voting, but to which extent is yet to be decided."
Svante Stockselius said in a statement that "in Belgrade, we saw a difference in judgment of the public and the back-up juries". Can you confirm that if this system had been implemented, it is likely that a different winner would have been chosen in 2008?
"Before the 2008 Contest, we agreed with the delegations and the juries that the un-used back-up results would not be publically revealed".
Were non-participating countries such as Austria, Italy, Monaco, Slovakia and Luxembourg sent the questionnaires and if so, did they respond?
"The questionnaire was an evaluation of the 2008 contest, and as such only sent to participating countries"
Have the non-participating countries been contacted by the EBU regarding the voting changes?
"No, but they will of course be informed at the time we send out the invitations to take part in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest"
Are there any discussions ongoing about returning to the full announcement of the 1-12 points?
"It quickly passed the table, but no concrete discussion has taken place on the topic".
Will this be discussed again in December or are discussions about any changes now dead until after Moscow 2009?
"It might be, but at the moment, I am sure that defining rules and guidelines for the national juries will be top priority of the group".
Will the non-qualifying semi final countries all present their votes live during the show as in previous years, or will their votes be added together and presented in one go?
"At the moment, there is no reason to believe the presentation of the voting will be changed. You will know for sure as soon as the 2009 rules go out!"
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well then too bad this comes one year too late for Vania..
@ Nigel Holland-Williams and Muireanne Bulens
I've not checked one by one at which year who voted for who. If a very detailed statistical analysis could be performed, a more specific result could be achieved about voting patterns of different countries. My assumptions on my previous reaction were based on a combination of my feelings from previous contests.
Therefore I carefully wrote "highest votes" instead of "12 points" (you will see if you re-read my previous comments). Sometimes 8 points or even 5 - 6 points could be too high for a song that doesn't deserve it. But the countries in my list would be voting the highest possible votes to each other being each other's favourite countries, though the songs not being their favourite songs..
Why only a jury in the final! While we are making changes also a live orchestra during the final would be great!! It will bring the contest back to it's glory years of the 70's, 80's and 90's!!!
Please, bring back the music in the Eurovision SONG Contest: bring back the orchestra and give some space to present the songwriters. The singback format is discriminating music. As composer I have to think choreography for the instrumental parts of my song: it's not song contest anymore.
You have created the Dance Contest already, give us back the SONG contest instead of the SHOW contest.
Tim,
Me neither would want to see the ESC collapse. But the way voting is going on now, there will also be no escape from that in (a rather short) time.
We'll wait and see what the juries can change next edition, I hope just enough to regain the confidence here.
I still prefer the ESC of today to that of 15 years ago in terms of musical style, though. At this point though I guess it's down to personal taste and, hey, that's why you and I each have a televote.
Oh believe me... I'm not stuck to the old styles either (music styles that used to win I mean).
Ok, personal taste makes the vote... but still. (i.e. Portugal 2008: though I'm not into the Portuguese fado at all, I do value the song for its near perfection. On the other hand I like the 13-in-a-dozen popsongs, but those who ended up in that top-5 this year... sorry but I simply can't see their musical value. I do like songs of that kind, but these weren't performed very good. Still they harvested most of the points... and that's beyond personal taste).
I think everyone agrees that there is, and has been for a long while, voting between neighbouring countries, and those with historical or, dare I say it, political links.
The point is, whatever the reason is, voting is taking place for reasons other than the quality of the song. I think this has always happened to an extent, but now it is more obvious. Whilst everyone knows that the ESC is very entertaining, including the way the voting goes, the great danger is that if countries are sufficiently alienated by the way the voting goes, they could decide to withdraw. If enough countries did this, it could ultimately lead to the collapse of the contest altogether, and I am sure, as ESC fans, we would rather that did not happen.
ps I am not Terry Wogan!!
Muireanne, I agree. Gina G didn't deserve to win because her vocal was not up to scratch. Sad, but true. I firmly believe that a good vocal is essential on the night and if you do a Gisela, a Beth or an Angelica Agurbash then you deserve to do badly. I still prefer the ESC of today to that of 15 years ago in terms of musical style, though. At this point though I guess it's down to personal taste and, hey, that's why you and I each have a televote.
hummm, ok. I do get the relevance you aim at. Probably that's a huge factor too (but then again, the new winners don't do well either in charts do they?) And a song with hugh hit-potential sung very bad in the contest I don't think deserves to win either. I mean, everyone can sing with a little help and corrections from a computer (this we call a cd-version)... unfortunatly not many can sing without (live). The ESC is a LIVE festival and therefor the sound is more important than anything else to my opinion. False notes weigh heavier here than the hit-potential a song might have outside the ESC.
Oh, the shame, 1989, of course.
As to my thoughts on the commercial relevance of the ESC, well, I suppose I am thinking as a UK viewer and a UK fan. The ESC's big problem in the 1990s was that no one would go out and buy the winners, they'd never get played on the radio, on TV, in clubs... Even the national entries in the West were songs that a lot of people had never even heard of, even in the countries they represented (I was horrified to meet some Germans in 1994 who had no idea who Mekado were!). And it contributed to the general idea amongst the public that the ESC was a load of old irrelevant nonsense. And that really frustrated me because I love the Contest.
But then, in 1996, Gina G happened (a similar thing happened a year earlier with Love City Groove, but on a smaller scale). Her song was the first Eurovision entry to get to Number 1 in the UK charts since Hold Me Now. It was never out of the Top Ten from the week it was released until well after the Contest. It was heard all over the country, everyone new about it and lots of people loved it. It became a big international hit and even made the US chart. Today it is still a Europop classic and so, so many people remember it. Two years previously it was inconceivable that a Eurovision song cuold have so much chart success. But it came 8th in Oslo (I know, she gave a bad, bad vocal!). Then televoting came in in 1998 and produced 'Diva', which, say what you like about it, was a hit. The juries would probably have picked Malta that year and, as much as I love Chiara, it would have done nothing to move the Contest forwards.
The ESC began with the goal of finding the 'best new popular song' of the year. How can you judge pop other than by its popularity?
w g,
Yugoslavia won in 1989 (I think). But whatever, juries indeed are not predictable and as far ESC-history goes I never thought of a winner to be chosen unfair (no matter it to be UK, Yugoslavia, France, Israel, Belgium or anyone else).
I do however not see your problem with the fact the Jury choices are not 'credible modern pop songs'. Then I ask myself, should it be? Isn't the ESC a category on its own? I don't care if its a 'credible modern pop song' or something from the folk, rock, dance or R&B corner... the song and performance is what they judge (the voice that sings it and the body that moves to it), not the possibility for mega-sale of the single.
I'm not a jury member, but I always judge the sound before the coreography and stage-settings. First part of the song I usually just shut my eyes and listen very carefully... most songs today DO NOT pass that test and therefor if they rank high are - in my opinion - awarded way too much points. And yes the performance is a factor as well, an important one even, but isn't the event called the Eurovision SONGcontest rather than just Eurovision?
It's simply not true that the juries are as predictable as televoting. The voting in the ESC in the jury days was eccentric, bizarre, anachronistic, but not anywhere near as predictable and partisaned as the anti-jury people here are making out.
How did Poland and Hungary manage to come as high as 2nd and 4th in 1994 if all the majority western countries were busy voting for themselves, for example? How did Yugoslavia win in 1990 when it was the only Communist country in the Contest?
My problem with the juries was only that they never seemed to like songs that would actually be credible modern pop songs, but that was confounded by the fact that everyone had to use the orchestra and sing in their native language. But things have changed now: the Contest has modernised and become more commercially credible (thanks largely to the eastern nations, I must say), so the juries will be judging a whole different show. Also, I think it's unlikely that the juries will have more than a 50% say in the results, so I expect the voting will be a lot more exciting than before, and probably fairer. The eastern European nations needn't worry: they often have the better songs so they'll still do well; it just means that western countries who send good songs will also have a chance from now on.
It is going to be interesting to see how the juries are selected and the mix of jury members.
At the moment the EBU rules for the stand by juries are:
8 people ( four male and four female )
of these 8, four have to be over 40 years old.
50% of the jury members must be music professionals and 50% non professional.
This is supposed to make an unbiased jury and I guess it does work.
Will the EBU disclose how the juries are ging to be selected ? I doubt it!!!
@Muireanne
Isn't it strange the anti-jury only (or at least mostly) comes from the eastern corner? Must be something about those juries they fear and wish to kill off at all costs it seems...
YEP WELL SAID AND SO CORRECT. SOMEONE HAS SAID WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN THINKING!!!!
Isn't it strange the anti-jury only (or at least mostly) comes from the eastern corner? Must be something about those juries they fear and wish to kill off at all costs it seems...
is it definite to change system or nothing can change too ? pls answer
it will be more politic when jury system comes u will see because the jury cares politic things much more than people ..armenia will never vote for turkey again .....is it wrong ? i hope that new is just a fake...but i never heard a fake news from esctoday 
@ Alex Koenig
Sorry but it will not be interesting to see how the juries vote at all. We can all gues which jury will vote the highest votes for which country:
Ex-Yugo and Albania to each other
Ex Eastern Block to each other
Ex-USSR to each other
UK and Ireland to each other
Spain-Portugal, Spain-Andorra to each other
France-Monaco-Switzerland to each other
Germany-Austria-Switzerland to each other
Be-Ne-Lux to each other
Baltics to each other, esp Finland-Estonia and Latvia-Lithuania
Scandinavians to each other, esp Denmark-Iceland, Norway-Sweden
Cyprus-Greece
Turkey-Azerbaijan, Turkey-Bosnia
..
So what's the good of bringing back the juries? It will be very dull :-(
ALEX!
WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR FIGURE FROM??????
IRELAND AND THE UK NEVER GIVE EACH OTHER 12 POINTS.
I HAVE BEEN ON THE UK STAND BY JURY, THE WAY IT IS CHOSEN AND THE RULES THAT APPLY TO IT ARE VERY STRICT. IT WILL BE A LOT FAIRER ALL ROUND TO HAVE A MIX OF TELEVOTERS AND AS JURY.
THIS SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED A LONG TIME AGO AND NOT AS A KNEEJERK REACTION TO A LOUSY SYSTEM OF TELEVOTING WHICH WILL NEVER EVER WORK OR BE TOTALLY FAIR.
BRING BACK THER FULL RESULTS PLEASE BUT DONT SHOW THE NON PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES AS A LIVE TELECAST.
CANT WAIT FOR 2009!!!!
@ Alex Koenig:
Ex-Yugo and Albania to each other
Ex Eastern Block to each other
Ex-USSR to each other
UK and Ireland to each other
Spain-Portugal, Spain-Andorra to each other
France-Monaco-Switzerland to each other
Germany-Austria-Switzerland to each other
Be-Ne-Lux to each other
Baltics to each other, esp Finland-Estonia and Latvia-Lithuania
Scandinavians to each other, esp Denmark-Iceland, Norway-Sweden
Cyprus-Greece
Turkey-Azerbaijan, Turkey-Bosnia
All correct, but BeNeLux? When (certainly not sharing the 10 and 12 with each other every year)?
Ireland & UK... I suggest you look at the points shared between 1965 and 2000 before you accuse them of that?
France - Switzerland? Could be, don't know for sure.
@ Mina: Spain and Andorra, ok. Anyone else perhaps?
I am curious how will this work at ESC final night... I think there will be some unexpected votes, but hope fair... Aldo i don't and will never trust to jury... learning from past. Lets wait and see.
I think it might be 50/50 spilt.
televote for non partcipating countries in the final and just announce 8 10 12............countries in final...juries..........announ ce 1 -12
@ Tim
Sorry but it will not be interesting to see how the juries vote at all. We can all gues which jury will vote the highest votes for which country:
Ex-Yugo and Albania to each other
Ex Eastern Block to each other
Ex-USSR to each other
UK and Ireland to each other
Spain-Portugal, Spain-Andorra to each other
France-Monaco-Switzerland to each other
Germany-Austria-Switzerland to each other
Be-Ne-Lux to each other
Baltics to each other, esp Finland-Estonia and Latvia-Lithuania
Scandinavians to each other, esp Denmark-Iceland, Norway-Sweden
Cyprus-Greece
Turkey-Azerbaijan, Turkey-Bosnia
..
So what's the good of bringing back the juries? It will be very dull :-(
People, you are all ignoring the main point of this article, and that is how the EBU uses their new executive puppet Sietse Bakker to give Politically-Correct Answers which use long sentences to say absolutely nothing at all.
How heroes fall....
cyprus and greece did not always excahnge 12 s before televoting though. now isnt that prrof that juries are fairer?
Fair is a very relative term. If the biggest part of the country wanted to give 12 pts to Cyprus (or to Greece), of course it wasn't fair..lol
But strictly musically speaking, yes, it was fairer.
The thing (and the whole problem with the juries) is what do we want? A song picked by 8 ppl from every country or a song picked by millions from every country?
The only reason juries are considered fairer is because diaspora can influence some results and only one vote/per phone would solve that problem but EBU will never agree to that.
If they really wanted a fair result, that's what they should do.
Juries and unrestricted televoting to me are one and the same: in both cases, the real taste of the countries isn't taken into account
Stockholm: Yes pleasee!!! 
Theres that saying "if you can't beat them, join them", and it seems we can't beat any of the soviet voting, so we may aswell just create another mini-bloc of our own lol
cyprus and greece did not always excahnge 12 s before televoting though. now isnt that prrof that juries are fairer? and in those days they had to sing in greek too
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