The European Broadcasting Union has proposed what it describes as a major overhaul of the Eurovision Song Contest voting framework. The adjustments include larger juries, fewer votes per payment method and tighter rules on artist promotion. These changes have already been approved by the Eurovision Reference Group, and will also be presented to the EBU General Assembly in an attempt to remove the controversial conversations and potential vote around Israeli broadcaster KAN’s participation at Eurovision 2026.
As we commented when the proposals were first outlined, we at ESC Insight see the proposed steps as necessary to protect the Song Contest’s reputation. Yet we remain unsure whether they go far enough to restore confidence among all participating broadcasters or to make the Song Contest sufficiently transparent and resistant to instrumentalisation to achieve its goals.
Much will become clear in the coming weeks once the EBU General Assembly concludes and the final participation list for the seventieth anniversary Eurovision Song Contest is revealed, and if these reforms have, from the broadcasters’ perspective, been sufficient.
What I react to most is the EBU’s use of the word “overhaul“.
What Is Being Addressed?
This is not an overhaul. These reforms are plasters carefully placed over specific pressure points in an attempt to cure narrowly defined issues. Certain changes are steps in the right direction, but they do not reach the level of reform that Eurovision requires.
Beyond what has been suggested, we still need tougher voting restrictions, still need clearer sanctions that are consistently applied, still need stronger proof that repeated voting per device is reduced, and shorter voting windows that limit the ability to vote repeatedly. Only then can we begin to feel confident that these new rules come close to what the Contest needs.
Eurovision voting does not need a plaster. Eurovision needs an operation. It needs an overhaul on a far greater scale than the approach now on the table in the General Assembly. It requires a system that every broadcaster can believe in, with transparency that meets the expectations placed upon one of the world’s most scrutinised live broadcasts. If we are taking the unprecedented step of bringing this issue to the General Assembly, they deserve to address every issue with Eurovision voting today.
The EBU’s proposed changes omit too many elements needed for a fair and robust voting system. These are changes that should look beyond one country’s participation and instead protect the fairness of the Contest for decades to come. And if these need to be introduced over multiple years, so be it, but present the package now.
Transparency At Every Level
The EBU Code of Ethics states that the organisation must operate with the “utmost transparency” and be able to “withstand rigorous public scrutiny”. While the aftermath of each Song Contest does see a plethora of data on jury and televoting ranks being published after the winner’s reprise has been performed, we are far away from a process that we would argue are the utmost or rigorous.
We need to be able to:
- …work out how jury rankings are converted into the final scores that ultimately produce the jury vote, with a publicly published algorithm
- …reveal, similar to countries such as Italy, an increased amount of data about the televoting split in each country
- Now that Semi Finals will once again include jury voting, a re-visit of how jury voting will be controlled and verified, with a published plan of action for what will happen to the scoreboard should jury votes need to be disqualified.
In short, if the Eurovision Song Contest is trying with its voting reforms to create such a change in confidence, then we would demand that the result is fully replicable by us and the plethora of community media who would pour over the data to check and double check that everything was valid.
Voting Criteria Need Fresh Thought
At the Eurovision Song Contest, jurors are asked to score entries according to four criteria. These are vocal capacity, stage performance, composition, originality, and overall impression. We at ESC Insight have previously written about concerns with these criteria, especially the term’ vocal capacity,’ which often carries too much weight and tends to focus on vocal range rather than timbre.
If we are appointing experienced professionals as jurors, those jurors should be able to use their judgment to support what is best for the Contest. Eurovision performances cannot be split neatly into categories. They are fluid, expressive works of art that often defy genre boundaries. Instead of a rigid checklist, we should allow jurors to judge entries according to a more open principle.
Alfred Nobel described the Nobel Prize in Literature as a prize for the most outstanding work. A similar standard could guide Eurovision jurors. They should be free to vote in accordance with a simple, singular criteria – what they believe to be outstanding and inspirational – without being boxed in by narrowly defined criteria that defines “jury” Eurovision performances in a certain way.
Removing Votes That Fuel Division
Eurovision jurors face a difficult task. They must rank every song from first to last. Choosing one’s favourites is easy enough, but deciding on the night, the difference between your 21st and 22nd favourite is a challenge for even Eurovision’s most loyal supporters. And an unnecessary one in a system where the top 10 score points, and the jury algorithm correctly softens the impact of those lower results. When full rankings are published, even in anonymised form, we can see not just the jurors’ favourites, but also their least favourites. This ability to see a juror’s least favourite can inflame tensions.
For instance, it is clear that over the last two years, nine of ten Azeri jurors placed Armenia last. Even if anonymous, this kind of pattern adds fuel to an already sensitive geopolitical situation – the type of situation that Eurovision’s new regulations should be seeking to avoid. Publishing the lower end of rankings has no public benefit and practically zero impact on the final scoreboard.
A positive list, whether it is a top ten, top fifteen or top twenty, would recognise excellence and make the act of score giving at the Song Contest a positive one. There is no need to continue ranking all the way down to twenty-sixth.
Improving Verification Of Juror Rankings
Ranking every song is a complex task, and jurors sometimes submit their list in reverse order by mistake. This has happened several times and is believed by observers to have contributed to Lithuania missing qualification in 2019.
To our knowledge, the current system does not include a verification step to confirm that the song ranked first is indeed the juror’s favourite. This is easy to fix. At the Home Composed Song Contest, where I recently helped organise the voting process, each juror ranked all songs, then answered one confirming question alongside their ranking. They are asked which song they are placing first, naming explicitly the song that was their favourite. This simple check eliminates accidental reversals and ensures no ranking errors slip through.
There have been too many occasions in Eurovision’s modern history of Eurovision jurors voting the wrong way around. That needs to stop, and can be stopped by the simplest of choice architecture.
A Fairer Path For Microstates
San Marino has competed loyally since 2008, but has no independent phone network, which makes distinguishing its televoters from voters in Italy impossible. As a result, San Marino’s first years at the Song Contest were covered by a 100 percent vote from their jury, but since the jury/televote split, San Marino’s televote score has been a fictional construction. The televote score from San Marino, under the current rulebook, is a mathematical formula based on the televote scores of countries the EBU deems to vote similarly to what is assumed San Marino would.
This process, each year, is conducted in a manner even the Sammarinese broadcaster does not know.
This is not an ethically acceptable model for transparency. Alternatives exist, such as using a larger demoscopic panel within the country to create a more authentic result. That would be far more accurate and far more honest. As a point of principle, we believe that no score in the Eurovision Song Contest should be the result of any fictional outcome. Should the winner of the Song Contest be decided by a wafer-thin margin, these fantasy 58 points that San Marino’s televote distributes are not a process that we can defend should they choose the Contest’s eventual victor.
A Review Of Televoting
Televoting began in 1997 and helped drive the Contest’s surge in popularity. However, it is increasingly outdated. Many national finals now rely on apps or digital accounts that allow for deeper interaction than phone calls or SMS can offer. The Eurovision app still requires a transfer to an external payment system and does not fully prevent repeat voting through changed payment methods.
Eurovision is a place of technological innovation. Its public voting system should reflect that. Countries like the United Kingdom now use online account-based voting for BBC programs, with no payment required. Eurovision should move toward an integrated app or portal that reflects modern viewing habits and provides the public with a smoother, more inclusive experience.
Eurovision may have started down this path. Alongside the launch of the new website, the EBU has created a system called the EuroFan account, which today offers a world of benefits, ticket news, shopping, and personalised updates..
Can this be transformed into a future voting portal in the future?
This Is What A Real Overhaul Looks Like
A genuine overhaul of Eurovision voting does not come from incremental adjustments. Nor should it be about solving a singular geopolitical issue. It deserves to be and needs to be bold enough to rebuild trust in every part of the system. What we outline here is not a wish list. It is a roadmap to a Contest that is transparent, fair and modern, and able to withstand the scrutiny that naturally comes with an event of this global scale.
This is what a real overhaul looks like.
- Detailed voting data that meets reasonable expectations of scrutiny and transparency.
- Clearer jury criteria that empower professionals to select the most outstanding work.
- The removal of the lowest end of jury rankings so the Contest celebrates achievement rather than embarrassment.
- A verification step that protects jurors from accidental error.
- Consequences for jury malpractice that protect the integrity of the competition.
- Honest systems for microstates so their points reflect their own citizens.
- A public voting method that suits the habits of today rather than the technology of 1997.
Together, these reforms would not only reduce controversy butalso strengthen the entire foundation of the Song Contest. They would offer trust to broadcasters, clarity to delegations, pride to jurors and honesty to viewers and fans at home.
It is right that Eurovision is undergoing voting reform ahead of the 2026 Contest. Nevertheless, we believe that the proposals offered do not come close to what an overhaul should mean. Instead of patching a single issue, the EBU should have proposed a deep, radical, multi-year change that touches every part of the voting process.
We will soon see whether their modest proposals are enough to settle the question of Vienna’s participation. But even if they do, the Song Contest needs more rigorous reform for us to give our complete confidence in how it operates.