Slovenia: Different rules announced for EMA 2017

Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has announced several changes for their show Evrovizijska Melodija (EMA) 2017. This show will be used to select the Slovenian entry for Eurovision 2017.

Changing their strategy of past few years, the upcoming edition of EMA will consist of three shows: two semifinals and a grand final. At each semi final four out of eight songs will qualify for the grand final. The qualifying acts will be determined by both televoting and jury.

At each semifinal, two songs getting the highest points from televoting will first make it to the final. From the six other songs (that did not make it with televoting) the two ranked highest with jury will also qualify.

As a result, a total of eight songs will compete together at the grand final of EMA 2017. The winner, who is to represent Slovenia in Kyiv,  will be determined by 50/50 voting combination of TV viewers and six regional juries.

However, in the past few years the EMA winner was determined by a completely different strategy. At the grand final a three-member expert jury was in the charge of selecting the top two songs out of ten competing ones. Later on, these top two songs were performed once again at the superfinal, where the decision was solely made by televoting.

RTVSLO has not confirm the official dates for EMA 2017 yet.

In recent years Slovenia did not have much success at Eurovision Song Contest. The country was last represented by ManuElla with her song Blue and Red, who performed at the second semifinal failing to make it to the final.