SVT has today decided to make an immediate rule change that could mean a possible disqualification of an entry if the songs authors, competitors or representatives courages and/or uses voting through an automated flow such as computers or callcenters. The decision comes after a local radio channel revealed a case where 2.500 calls were made by a computer.
A reavealing story made by local radio channel P4 Sjuhärad has caused big headlines in Swedish Media today: A man from the western regions of Sweden has shown the radio channel how he programmed a computer to perform hundreds of phone calls on one of the competing entries of Melodifestivalen.
A total of 2.500 phone calls were made during the time the lines for the voting were open. The man says he was in touch with people behind one of the competing songs and that they agreed on using this automatic phone call procedure. The people behind this entry also paid for the calls. The story also tells that the song competed in one of the last years editions of Melodifestivalen.
The competition rules today forbids any form of promotion for a song but SVT now also adds to the rules that it will not be allowed for the authors, competitors or their representatives to courage and/or use
votings through an automated flow such as computers or callcenters. Breaking the rule will lead to the disqualification of the song.
You might also like to read:
