Just as our Twitter followers had guessed, this morning, EBU and 2016 host broadcaster SVT announced a change in the reading of points counting for the contest in May already. This change comes in the hope to make it more exiting.
Is it to become a tradition that we will see changes to the Eurovision Song Contest every time Sweden is to host the show? In 2013 they got rid of the draw for the running order and replaced it with a drawing for first and second half after which the producers of the show decides the exact starting positions of each country. And now, for the 2016 contest we’ll get a change in the reading of the points.
Official EBU site, Eurovision.tv explains the new reading of points in the following way:
After viewers have cast their votes by telephone, SMS or using the official app, each national spokesperson from the 43 participating countries will be called in to present the points of their professional jury. After the presentation of the scores from the juries, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score for each song. These televoting results will then be announced by the host, starting with the country receiving the fewest points from the public and ending with the country that received the highest number of points, building towards a guaranteed climax.
In the case of a country without televoting, for example San Marinio, they will use the votes from a selected group of countries to be the televotes for San Marino.
Martin Österdahl, Executive Producer for the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest explains:
In previous years the winner has been known for up to 20 minutes before the end of voting and that’s not good TV. This format change will inject a new level of excitement into the finish of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Yesterday when EBU released a teaser of some changes coming, we asked our Twitter followers what they thought it would be. One of the options we gave them was the reading of points and 59% voted for that. We have such a clever Twitter audience so now we ask, is this a good thing or not?
EBU announced change in reading of points – what do you think?
— EuroVisionary (@EuroVisionary) February 18, 2016
