New rules have been announced for the Eurovision Song Contest in the biggest change to voting since 1975.
In previous years each country's jury and public votes were combined and announced in one go.
Now the votes will be split with each country's jury vote cast first, and votes from viewers in all countries combined and announced at the end.
Organisers say this will create a "dramatic finish" as the winner will be only be revealed at the very end.
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Ta El Loro... I understand... I think 
Thanks El Loro that cartoon explains it, so even I can get it 
When I saw the words 'Eurovision Song Contest' I was so hoping that the next words would be 'UK pull funding'
Enthusiastic Contrafibularities posted:
When I saw the words 'Eurovision Song Contest' I was so hoping that the next words would be 'UK pull funding'
velvet donkey posted:Adele and The Royal Philharmonic and we'd still come bottom three.
El Loro posted:New rules have been announced for the Eurovision Song Contest in the biggest change to voting since 1975.
In previous years each country's jury and public votes were combined and announced in one go.
Now the votes will be split with each country's jury vote cast first, and votes from viewers in all countries combined and announced at the end.
Organisers say this will create a "dramatic finish" as the winner will be only be revealed at the very end.
Hmmm... I was reading this earlier today, and I can't help feeling that although it sounds a good idea on paper, I think it will open the Eurovision up to even more controversy than usual.
Firstly, the mass point awarding at the end is likely to cause big reversals due to differences between jury and audience views - which could cause accusations of rigging.
Also the fact that the breakdown of national audience voting will be effectively hidden (which I suspect is intentional 
) means that instead of Wogan-style comments about political bias on the night, they're likely to see critical press "exclusives" over the following days as people become aware of the actual voting - potentially more damaging in the long run.
Let's just say I won't be surprised if this voting system is changed again in the next two or three years...
Do you have any suggestions to combat this then EL? I don't know what's the best way to deal with it 
Sprout posted:Do you have any suggestions to combat this then EL? I don't know what's the best way to deal with it
Not really, TBH. It may be a bit of a cop-out, but it's probably unsalvageable now, and we can never return to anything remotely close to the song contest it started off as.
I think it's impossible not to have public voting now - it's pretty-much expected nowadays, and of course it brings in lots of money.
Besides: the rot set in long before big changes such as the introduction of public voting, or the huge expansion due to old Eastern Bloc countries.
My real beef is with the Eurovision organisers, who are very protective of the contest, and as a result are a big part of the problem. They were very vicious towards Terry Wogan: they really hated his criticism of the show and the voting bias, insisted he was wrong and actually celebrated when he left. The truth is however that it's got much worse since he left!
