Do you like the new voting system?

[FilipFromSweden]

I think this is a fantastic way. People often complain about televotes being ruined by jury votes, and a lot of people want jury votes to stay. And this way there will be no runaway winner, exciting to the very last minute. Imagine the juicy moment when a host announces a country got 0

 

[Terence]

With this system, the points would look bombastic!

I am unsure how this will work, I'll reserve judgement till the actual thing in May.

 

[A-lister]

I guess it's difficult to give a straight up yes or no answer here, but here are my thoughts on the changes:

I think after the disasterous ranking-combined system of the past years which practically gave juries the upper hand some change was definetely needed in order to restore some sort of credibility and a feeling that the opinions of millions matter atleast equally to the opinions of a few people (are they really expert? are they bought? what's their agenda?). I'm not a huge fan of the juries in general as most people in this forum already know, but even I understand and agree that something was needed to be done in order to minimize the influence of blind nationalist diaspora voting, so I accept the idea of having juries onboard (but then I don't think the juries necessarily was bringing something better but that's another discussion).

The good: This will give more equal powers to the televoters, which is something I've asked for for years now. Sure the juries might still use their powers to manipulate the outcome to some extent, but not as much in the previous years. I might have added a slight 60/40 upper hand to the televoters, but I doubt EBU would agree on that and I can see some trouble with that too so I guess what has now been introduced is a good enough compromise.

The bad: Emphasis is now given on the juries, while the public vote gets combined in the end and not given as much space in the show which makes it look like this is more a jury-fest than a public-fest, eventhough the audience actually get some more say again, symbolically it looks a bit bad. Also, while it's true that the suspense was killed in previous years when the winner was given pretty early on, I still think there's a suspense-killer in having a result and just in some minutes add the other half and be like "oh here you have the actual winner btw". One idea would be to have the juries combined votes in the beginning instead and then have the spokespersons' give the televoters points from each country and keep the classical build-up suspense like we have now.

Verdict: I know this is another step of the "Melodifestivalization" of ESC, but since the host will give out some 26 points in the end it could still keep a suspense and build up til' the very end (would be worse if it would be less entries), so I'm actually staying optimistic and think this could turn out well and quite interesting in the end. The most important is that viewers will now have more say again, but we still keep juries to even out some things so I guess this satisfy both the anti-jurors and the pro-jurors to some extent atleast. I must say I think I am quite satisfied with the change afterall, we'll see in the final show but I think this could be good...

... for once I can actually say that I sorta agree with a change made by the EBU!

 

[MrJadeEwen]

The decision sounds like a fun and entertaining one. Voted unsure as I want to see it work on the night.


Also surely it's beneficial for the public not to vote? As you can't vote for your own country, it's going to get more televotes if you don't vote at all. That's going to be an interesting one to counter.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

The decision sounds like a fun and entertaining one. Voted unsure as I want to see it work on the night.


Also surely it's beneficial for the public not to vote? As you can't vote for your own country, it's going to get more televotes if you don't vote at all. That's going to be an interesting one to counter.

No that's not the case. I believe the way it will work is that each countries televotes still use the 1-8,10,12 system.. however they are all bundled together at the end. Therefore it may end up something like:

UK 21 (12 Malta, 5 Ireland, 4 San Marino)
France 26 (Belgium 5, Ireland 6, UK 8, Sweden 7)

The first number would be displayed and given but it would consist of scores which were decided by each nation separately.

 

[GWTW1939]

The only thing that would have made me happy was the announcement that every rule/change made from 2013 on was abolished. With this I can only roll my eyes and sigh

 

[VikingTiger]

I am curious how this will turn out. I think the results from the juries and the televoters will be a bit more balanced. None of the two can completely block the results of the other. Does anyone know if this would have affected last years result?

As many of you have already said; I am a bit sceptical to announcing the jury votes for each country first. Especially since these juries consist of only 5 people - that can hardly be representative of a country. Maybe the televotes should be presented first?
But then again; as it will be now the televoters can change the results of the juries - and that might give a feel of more power to the televoters. It would not be a good thing to first have the results of the televotes - and then have the juries change what would be seen as "the Will of Europe"! I imagine watching Italy win the televotes last year- and then watching how it all changed after the juries had their say - placing the televoters winner in third place... I would have been FURIOUS! (Grrr..... I still get upset when I think of last years result... In a great year for ESC; the juries fucked it all up....OXO)

 

[MrJadeEwen]

No that's not the case. I believe the way it will work is that each countries televotes still use the 1-8,10,12 system.. however they are all bundled together at the end. Therefore it may end up something like:

UK 21 (12 Malta, 5 Ireland, 4 San Marino)
France 26 (Belgium 5, Ireland 6, UK 8, Sweden 7)

The first number would be displayed and given but it would consist of scores which were decided by each nation separately.

Ohh I'm with you now. Sorry had a massive blonde moment

 

[VikingTiger]

....and of course; KEEP the announcement of both the 8, the 10 and the 12 points!

 

[Blu]

The only thing that would have made me happy was the announcement that every rule/change made from 2013 on was abolished. With this I can only roll my eyes and sigh

They just did that!

 

[Blu]

I agree, but I still think presenting the detailed breakdown of jury votes per country is way less exciting than televoting itself, which will be announced as a big mass of points without any country name.

I think they will still be able to break down the actual national televotes graphically. Something like this would do...

 

[Salmon]

I’m only feeling sorry for our poor Indonesian [MENTION=12901]12Points[/MENTION], he won’t be worth as much anymore ):

 

[Yazy]

PROS: No more high votes exchanging between neighbors. Now you can all stop complaining about high number of EX-YU/Scandi/EX-USSR in one semi final.

CONS: I don´t know about you, but I´m totally less motivated to vote now. :? I honestly feel that my vote won´t count for damn, against votes from so many other countries, many of them having much higher population.

Another problem I have is that this system will totally kill the intense voting from previous years, where even the last countries could change some sort of outcome (minus the winner being announced before the last country announced its votes which was introduced in 2013 - that part can just go to hell). But I´m guessing it can´t be helped. To improve something, sacrifices have to be made, I guess.

And why the hell are they going to announce 8 and 10 points along with 1-7 graphically? Seriously? Are runner-ups and third-placers irrelevant all of the sudden? Don´t know about you but I consider them enough important to be mentioned individually.
It is almost like medal awarding for top 3, why would you cut that out?! SOOC

 

[A-lister]

CONS: I don´t know about you, but I´m totally less motivated to vote now. :? I honestly feel that my vote won´t count for damn, against votes from countries that have much higher population.

I think you misunderstood the change, countries with bigger populations won't have more say, every country still award the 1-8, 10, 12 points each based on their respective televoting results, but these points will be bundled up together. It might give the visual impression that it's one big televoting result, but that's not the case... if that would have been the case, the change would have been dreadful.

 

[Yazy]

I think you misunderstood the change, countries with bigger populations won't have more say, every country still award the 1-8, 10, 12 points each based on their respective televoting results, but these points will be bundled up together. It might give the visual impression that it's one big televoting result, but that's not the case... if that would have been the case, the change would have been dreadful.

If that´s the case, I can tolerate that.


EDIT: One more thing: I really hope that they return with the old semi final qualifiers announcing system, where they wait a bit to build tension. That was my favorite part, and it sucks that they sped up the process last year.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Now they're just rubbing it in..

 

[Mickey]

CONS: I don´t know about you, but I´m totally less motivated to vote now. :? I honestly feel that my vote won´t count for damn, against votes from so many other countries, many of them having much higher population.

I think you misunderstood the change, countries with bigger populations won't have more say, every country still award the 1-8, 10, 12 points each based on their respective televoting results, but these points will be bundled up together. It might give the visual impression that it's one big televoting result, but that's not the case... if that would have been the case, the change would have been dreadful.

Yazy has misunderstood the change, true, but it does highlight another problem. This is quite a complicated voting procedure to explain. A lot of casual fans don't even understand that the current votes are made up of 50/50 jury/televote.

Splitting everything into two stages and then having random numbers of points thrown around at the end could confuse people who have been brought up on douze points and nothing else.

I suspect the complaint of those bloody Russians with their massive population overwhelming the vote could be a common one amongst the ill-informed.

I've decided I won't explain the changes to people at my Eurovision party and just see what happens.

 

[Franco]

The only thing that would have made me happy was the announcement that every rule/change made from 2013 on was abolished. With this I can only roll my eyes and sigh

xgood

 

[anto475]

I suppose it's alright. I don't really see any main problem with it, as long as they keep the voting presentation as it is already. However it is clearly part of the Melodifestivalenisation of the contest, and this is worrying. Osterdahl and Bjorkman talked ad nauseum during that little video about "creating a better show" which really isn't a good thing. Eurovision is a contest first, and a show second, the clue is in the name. The contest element of the Eurovision shouldn't be compromised just to make something nice to look at. They have their own toy to play with, i.e. Melodifestivalen, and they can make that as unfair and show~y as they like, but they should stop messing with this contest.

 

[GWTW1939]

If I were a country that was constantly at the bottom of the scoreboard or even flops just one year I wouldn't like this new system at all. It's like having a brighter spotlight put on your failure. Being forced to walk out the front door in front of all the press instead of being allowed to quietly walk through the back with dignity. If I were bottom 5 or whatever I wouldn't want my failure to be magnified more then it already is. I would even apply it to those who finish mid-table, its disheartening.

They keep stating they want to put on a better show but all their doing is the opposite.