Juries return in Eurovision revamp
Juries are to return to next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, it has been announced, following criticism of tactical voting by former eastern bloc countries.
The world-famous contest has been labelled a politically-motivated farce because of the decision by some countries to vote together.
Sir Terry Wogan had threatened to quit the commentating job he has held for 37 years because of the repeated tactical voting. Now it has been announced that the 2009 final, due to take place in Moscow, will feature votes from viewers as well as a jury.
Sir Terry had called for a return to juries to judge the contest after Russia won this year’s contest, while the UK, with Andy Abraham, came last.
Russia received the maximum 12 points from former Soviet states Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia, as well as Israel.
The UK has only finished in the top 10 once in the last 10 contests and has finished outside the top 20 four times in that period.
Sir Terry has criticised the contest for becoming "ridiculous", stating: "The UK and the BBC has to decide whether they want to take part anymore. I don’t want to be presiding over yet another debacle… Russia were going to be the political winners from the beginning."
A BBC spokeswoman said: "We are waiting with interest to hear the details of how the mix of jury and telephone voting will work."
Ruurd Bierman, chairman of the Eurovision reference group, said: "We strongly believe in televoting as a way of measuring the opinion of our millions of viewers across Europe. After the public debate about neighbour and diaspora voting, we decided to give the national juries a say in the outcome of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest."
Svante Stockselius, executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, said: "Nothing is more democratic than the vote of the public. But a jury takes the opportunity to listen to the songs several times, before they make up their minds. In Belgrade, we saw a difference in judgment of the public and the back-up juries, and we believe a combination will make the show more interesting."
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