During the Heads of Delegation meeting, currently taking place in Athens, several issues passed already. The Reference Group announced its decision to make a slight change to the format; In 2006, only the top-6 of the final and the 'Big-4' will qualify for the final of 2007. This means that 10 countries qualify for the 2007 final. Ruurd Bierman, head of the Reference Group, also announced the results of independent market research done by a market research company.
Serbia & Montenegro
News about Serbia & Montengro will be announced officially by the EBU shortly. We will keep you posted about that.
10 qualify for 2007 final
In 2006, only the top-6 of the final and the 'Big-4' will qualify for the final of 2007. This means that 10 countries qualify for the 2007 final, while 14 final tickets are being given away in the semifinal. This also means that a maximum of 30 countries can take part in the semifinal. The overall amount of countries that can take part (40) will not change.
Research on televoting
To evaluate the televoting concept, the EBU asked a market research company to do an independent investigation to the results of the past years. First of all, no proof of fraud during the televoting has been found after last year's contest. Another conclusion drawn was that centralised televoting, in this case organised by the German company Digame, is the best solution to avoid possible fraud. Neigbouring voting is not decisive on the overal result and the winner, although it might affect the qualification for the final. There is no significant difference with the jury votes and therefor a jury system or a mixed system using televoting and a jury is not under consideration. The back-up jury will stay in place to provide voting results in case of televoting failure.
More news from Athens later today!
