Latvia will be the first country within the Eurovision family to actively include Spotify data when choosing its 2017 Eurovision representative.

The inclusion of data from streaming service Spotify will be made possible by a cooperation between Spotify and Universal Music Group. Ilze Jansone, producer of Latvia’s national final Supernova 2017, elucidates the choice to incorporate a modern music technology into the selection process:

With the involvement of Spotify in the competition, we have a chance to reach new listeners and include real data from music consumers in the voting results.

The details of the inclusion of Spotify are now being worked out, to ensure the precision of data and prevent any possibility of voting fraud.

The Regional Manager Central and Eastern Europe at Spotify, Przemek Pluta, has stated that this will be the very first instance that Spotify will give data to be included into a national selection for Eurovision.

Furthermore, Petri Mannonen, Universal Music Group representative and member of the Latvian national jury, said:

The more listens a song has on the Spotify streaming platform, the better chance it has to become a hit. That’s a fact.

Latvia’s Eurovision selection Supernova 2017 will be held on 5, 12 and 19 February 2017, with the final to be held on 26 February 2017.

This year, Latvia was represented by artist Justs Sirmais, who reached the 15th place in the Grand Final with his entry Heartbeat, earning 132 points. Heartbeat was written by singer Aminata Savadogo, who herself reached a respectable 6th place in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015, earning 186 points in the Grand Final with her song Love injected.

Please enjoy Justs performing Heartbeat during the Grand Final of Eurovision 2016 once again: