“Real contenders will not be affected by new jury system”

In the first episode of our talkshow The ESCDaily Show we have Dutch commentator and ESC Insight reporter Eleanor Chalkley at the table, discussing about the first rehearsals of the first semi final. And about the new voting system for the jury, and which countries could benefit from that.

The EBU has announced a subtle change to how juries score the entries at the Eurovision Song Contest. For ESC Insight, Eleanor wrote an in-depth article about her investigation on the maths behind the changes, explains the impact of the new system, and why it makes Eurovision a more competitive contest.

“The songs that will win semi finals, the ones that get 10 or 12 points, that is not going to change,” Chalkley explains in our talkshow. “But when one juror puts a song on their last place, that influence gets decreased. The high ranked entries get something extra and the low entries are not punished as hard.”

Cornald Maas: You still have to be best in your own genre

Commentator Cornald Maas likes the changes that have been applied by the EBU. “If you play on safe, that is not good enough. You have to be the best in your own genre.” And this benefits entries like the Hungarian metal song, Chalkley thinks: “They can be placed last with four jurors, and top for one of them, and therefor still end up with one point from that jury.”

In the ESCDaily Show presenter Steef van Gorkum also spoke about the latest news surrounding early favourites from Czech Republic and Israel in semi final one. And Cornald Maas also speaks out on how he believes a commentator should behave and comment during the tv shows. Check out the full epsiode below!