United by Music

Since 1997, the result of the Eurovision Song Contest has been decided at least in part by ‘televoting’: votes cast by the public watching at home, primarily by telephone. Initially, the scheme was trialled in five countries, before becoming the default voting system in 1998. From then until 2008, the Eurovision winner was decided entirely by televoting, before the re-introduction of national juries the following year. Televoting now counts for half of the points available at Eurovision (actually slightly more than half, but we’ll get to that in a minute). Before the 2023 contest, a couple of changes were made to Eurovision’s voting system. The first of these was the removal of juries from the semi-finals, meaning that the qualifiers would be decided solely by televoting (with the exception of San Marino, and any other country unable to provide a valid televote result). The second change was the introduction of a ‘Rest of the World’ televote in both the semi-finals and final: a way...

Half of the result of the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 was decided by the votes of each participating country’s national jury, a panel of five music industry ‘experts’ selected by the country’s broadcaster. According to Eurovision rules, jurors should rank the competing songs using their professional skill and experience, with the sole reference for their judgement being the performance of the acts during the second dress rehearsal. The official rules also state that jurors should be free from all external influences, including betting odds. The extent to which this can be ensured in the digital age is possibly up for debate, and you only need to look back to the jury scandal of 2022 to see that the system is far from perfect, but I am of the belief that the presence of juries is necessary in Eurovision. In the interests of transparency, the EBU releases each jury’s full ranking of the competing songs after the contest has taken place, as well as the ranking of e...