As reported last Monday, the voting procedure of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest will see a combination of jury and televoting used. Each will provide 50% of the total votes. Today, more details about the juries have been confirmed through Greek broadcaster, ERT. Each jury will be composed of five music professionals with no connection to the Eurovision Song Contest or any of the participants.
Each participating country will have a jury made up of five members, all local citizens and music professionals with a background in radio, television, composition or music production. Guidelines dictate that there must be a reasonable range of ages, and juries must contain both men and women.
With such a small number of jury members, it is statically more likely to see a wider variety of results during the voting, with a smaller base number, there is less likelihood of a broad consensus across all juries. This could lead to a wider spread of scores for the Eurovision Song Contest finalists.
The votes of the jury will be compiled in the same way as the traditional Eurovision Song Contest votes, with the top ten scoring 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The same will occur with the televote, and the scores will be added together. The new top ten will then provide the national vote. Where countries are tied, the country with the highest televote score will take the higher position.
