Following the reintroduction of juries for the voting in the final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the EBU has decided to extend this to include the semi-finals.
It has been widely agreed that giving juries, consisting of music industry professionals, a 50% contribution to the scores of each country was a success. At a recent meeting, the EBU reference group for the Eurovision Song Contest discussed the impact of the juries. The EBU has received comments from the broadcasters who participated in the 2009 contest, as well as other interested parties such as fans and journalists, in favour of the revised format. As a result of this, it has been decided that the jury system will continue and will also be extended to include the semi-finals.
The other 50% will remain in the hands of viewers via a telephone vote. The countries finishing in the top ten in each semi-final will qualify for the final. This represents a slight change from the format used in Moscow. Then, one jury picked a song to qualify for the final. In each of the semi-finals, this resulted in the song that finished tenth in the phone vote not qualifying for the final.
