It’s been one month now, since Loreen managed to become the second ever artist, to ever win the competition twice, as well as tying Sweden as the most succesful country in the contest, with Ireland. However, as most might even recall, she didn’t quite convince the televote and yesterday, the debate continued, but this time, it happened within a broadcaster.
Change to the juries in 2024?
Yesterday, a rather interesting topic came onto the discussion table in Norway. There are claims that suggest that the roles of the juries at both the Eurovision Song Contest and Melodi Grand Prix should be looked into. The Norwegian broadcaster (NRK) has since last month been bombarded with complaints about the power of the juries, which has now led the project manager of Melodi Grand Prix, Thea Flinder, to reveal that the Norwegian broadcaster to get a “dialogue” going with the EBU.
Not much has so far come out of this “dialogue”, other than we will have to wait at least until January 2024 before we know for sure. The EBU has however told to TV 2 Norway why the juries are included at the song contest, stating in an email that: (translation via Google)
- “Using national juries of musical experts in the grand final, who rank all the songs in order of priority, each song can be assessed individually. It ensures the best qualitative ranking of all participants in the Grand Final and that a winner is decided on the broadest criteria.By using a jury vote for the Grand Final, we can also continue a long-standing tradition of uniting all participating countries on air with spokespersons delivering votes from their nation.With all participating countries voting in the grand final, including the points awarded by professional juries, it also helps mitigate diaspora and cultural voting which is reduced by 50% in the semi-finals by assigning countries with similar voting records to perform and vote in separate shows .
Finally, to maintain the suspense of the voting sequence in the grand finale, with the final winner only known at the very end of the show, two sets of separate votes are still required.”
The EBU makes it clear in their response at the end, that “two sets of separate votes are still required“, which should confirm that juries will remain in the final at least.
The reason for the discussion within NRK comes after the broadcaster had received complaints about Käärijä not winning, despite being the clear televote favorite. It is also noted, that even Alessandra, who represented Norway this year, was damaged as well by the juries, who placed her 17th, meanwhile the televote managed to help her redeem herself with a final 5th place outcome.
Norway in general has suffered from the judgement of the juries in recent years, most notably when KEiiNO managed to win the televote in 2019, but ultimately was pulled down to 6th place, due to a low score from the juries.
Suggestions have included that the power of the juries should be more limited, but either giving them less then 50% of the final outcome, or by adding more jury members in order to have a broader and more diverse range, regarding musical style, age, gender and more.
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Source(s): TV2.no (In Norwegian)
