[Newshound47]

www.ebu.ch 

Very bad decision to scrap the jury vote from the semi. Block voting will return instantly and dominate again.

I’d be interested to know the reason why. I’d suspect it’s to increase voting in the semis - maybe historically it’s been quite low. Gives them the ability to push the line of it all being in the viewers’ hands and generate more revenue if more people vote. I suspect the integrity of the vote and the results aren’t at the forefront of this decision.

Do they earn much from voting ?

[WhisperOfCinnamon]

www.ebu.ch 

Very bad decision to scrap the jury vote from the semi. Block voting will return instantly and dominate again.

I’d be interested to know the reason why. I’d suspect it’s to increase voting in the semis - maybe historically it’s been quite low. Gives them the ability to push the line of it all being in the viewers’ hands and generate more revenue if more people vote. I suspect the integrity of the vote and the results aren’t at the forefront of this decision.

Certainly one reason could be that in this year's contest, Azerbaijan qualified for the Grand Final despite receiving 0 points from the public and coming last in that semi's televote.

[Happy2001]

From the FAQ:

"If irregular patterns are seen in any country’s Jury vote in the Semi-Finals (even though the vote no longer counts towards the results of the Semi-Final) that Jury will be dismissed and will not vote in the Grand Final.

In the Grand Final, should any national jury have been/be disqualified, the points awarded from the public vote in that country will be doubled and used as a substitute so that the same number of total points, 116 (58 x2), are awarded by each participating country."

eurovision.tv 

Voting changes (2023) FAQ | Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 2023 voting changes - frequently asked questions
  Source: eurovision.tv

[gottago]

I can see why they're scrapping jury voting in the semis, there have been quite a few examples in recent years of really unpopular songs managing to get through because of the juries and then totally flopping in the final (see Azerbaijan and Switzerland this year). Bloc voting is less of an issue in the semis generally with so few countries failing to qualify in each show and the regions being split in the draw anyway. A good decision.

[aaron_scotland]

Does this mean the trip around Europe to the 40 spokespersons won't happen?

[JosiahStuart]

Does this mean the trip around Europe to the 40 spokespersons won't happen?

It’ll probably still happen.

[AxG]

Does this mean the trip around Europe to the 40 spokespersons won't happen?

It’ll probably still happen.

As the trip around Europe's spokespersons only happens in the final, and jury will still vote in the final then I assume so.

[Ash101]

Martin's quote from the original article confirms that'll still happen: "....we can also maintain the tradition of travelling around Europe and Australia to collect points and ensure a thrilling voting sequence with the winner only revealed at the very end of the show."

[BcastCornwall]

Hello everyone ....

This is in my view an important move to counter the issues that arose at this year's event. The comparatively smaller (much smaller) televote in the Semi Finals makes rooting out issues with the jury vote in these semi finals less easy to detect. By eliminating the jury vote the playing field is immediately levelled. Remember all of these votes go through Digame and irregularities identified with them quickly.

The problem we've now got is the nature of the 'additional country' non participants, international vote in the final, the hoops notably with the credit card validation process will skew that imo.

[p2004]

This move doesn't have anything to do with the audience. Last year if you recall, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Azerbaijan and someone else were discovered by the EBU and its partners to have suspicious votes which appeared to suggest that they had a voting arrangement. They had to disqualify their votes in the semi-final and create an aggregated result for these countries both in the semi-final and grand final, which is why many a time instead of the face of some presenter somewhere in Europe we saw the face of Martin.

The move is primarily to disincentivise measures to "rig" the jury vote, as it makes it significantly less valuable - with these blocs not being large enough to significantly impact results in the grand final to make certain countries attain high positions. They need to be seen doing something to make it seem like the EBU is being accountable in its organisation - and the method they're using is fairly decent overall.

One concern is the return of entries pandering purely to the televote - however, it is worth noting that these songs will still need to compete in a final with a normal jury. The joke entries will, subsequently, suffer in the final and therefore pursuing the route of joke entries is not made particularly more attractive for your average country, who now primarily competes in the hopes of a good result or victory.

The rest of the world online vote, I assume, will follow the model that SBS trialled in Australia, where in place of a phone number you have a secure system online that allowed Australian viewers to submit paid-for votes.