The San Marino broadcaster question in a press release whether or not they will be able to continue taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest. They feel that the introduction of the new voting system is a discrimination against the smaller countries.
A few days ago, the European Broadcasting Union introduced a new set of voting rules for the Eurovision Song Contest. This was done in order to increase the tension of who would win to the very end. It however also included that for some countries points would simply be made up. The latter would happen in the cases televoting can’t be used, and as that is the case for San Marino each year, they are being affected harder than most by this. Naturally it can be understood if they don’t like such rules introduced without them even being asked.
The General Director of San Marino TV states in a press release that the new voting system simply is unacceptable to them.
Small States are, once again, discriminated. Now the discrimination is even formalized. This is barely tolerable and the San Marino national Radio and Television is unsure whether it can tolerate it next year too. It is unbearable that certain decisions are simply communicated and not shared with the involved broadcasters. That said, these rules are, from our point of view, unacceptable.
San Marino is a small nation and as they every year have too few televoters in order for it to be used, they will basically each year from now be met with made up points. These points will according to the new rules be made based on an average of points from countries which are considered similar.
Below you find a video explaining the new voting system. We also recommend that you look at our article where we tried the new voting system on the points from the 2015 contest to see how it would affect the result.
