What changes do you want introduced to the rules/format?

[A-lister]

Discuss!

These are my proposals:

• Abolishment of pre-recorded backing vocals.
• Increasing the maximum amount of people allowed on stage from 6 to 8 (or 10 even), I think it's a good compromise between only allowing live vocals and still make it possible for dancers to do their thing. Also, it's long overdue tbh, 6 has been a very low number for years now and is just and odd number in this time and age.
• Acts and songwriters/composers need to have a proven connection to the music market of the country they represent, no more shopping around for entries! The concept of Eurovision is entries representing their countries, I feel like we diverged from that. It doesn't mean that all songwriters/composers need to come from said country, but at least they need to be an active part of that music scene (past Eurovision entries don't count here!). I am fully aware that some music markets are integrated and that micro-states are 'de facto' part of their neighbors' markets, but a change of rule would take that into consideration while still protect the concept of entries actually representing their countries.
• Running order needs to be random! I think we pretty much established now that letting the "producers" choose it opens up to favoritism, corruption and tactics. We should have a transparent and fair system, and there a methods to keep a nice flow in the production (draw the songs from genre/tempo pots for instance).
• Abolishment of juries (now I am not delusional and know it won't happen, but at least decrease their powers to a 40/60 situation in favor of televoters).
• Have it explicitly written into the rules of Eurovision that only recognized independent countries that are at least partially geographically within the European continent, or at least have a history of a minimum of 5 previous entries in the contest, can take part and scrap the idea of the dated European Broadcasting Area (that EBU don't even follow themselves). This would close the door to any risk of having countries like USA, China, Qatar, Morocco, Lebanon, Canada or others joining. It's not EUROvision if the world can join! Let's protect the brand and concept!
• Have the juries verbally give out 8-12 points (I know it would make the show longer, but don't we want more suspense? I know that we can't go back to the old days of giving out 1-12 when we have so many countries and also split the televoting results, but this could be a compromise that could still work).
• Re-establishing the language rule (another idealistic fantasy that won't happen, but that's just my opinion).

 

[burrito]

With #5, wouldn't that basically rule out microstates like San Marino? They have the population of a small city. Not a lot of talented performers and singers in a single small city.

Or they could allow Italian - but only Italian - singers to represent them.

 

[A-lister]

Every vocalist has to be shown on screen.

I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but I actually disagree here. I think it should be up to the entrants to decide what works best for their particular entry and the stage-show they have in mind. The job of a background singer is to provide backing vocals, they aren't the main act. While it's nice and all if they are shown and incorporated into the main act somehow, I don't think it should be compulsory. For some performances showing the backing vocalists might actually create a bigger impact, but in some it might look a bit odd (Turkey 2009 comes to mind here but there are other examples).

2. Would give us more gimmicky dance shows. Try to make the best out of 6 people.

And? Eurovision can't just be only dead serious acts, it's also about fun and entertainment. I will never understand why people always use the word "gimmick" when acts put an effort to create a nice stage show for the viewer. I mean it's not as if a bunch of dancers would fit an entry like "Voilà", but for sure they did in an entry like "Mata Hari". Eurovision should have room for both but the 6 people rule (and on top of that all vocals need to be live) takes away the possibility to create a more impactful stage show for some acts and we'll basically end up just having ballads in the end. No one is forcing an act to use 8-10 people (if that would be allowed), and for some stagings it would just look ridiculous, but I think the option should be there and I think allowing at least a little more people is the best compromise if we are to stick with that all vocals need to be fully live, 6 is really outdated.

 

[Lupus]

Ever since the split of the televote and the jury vote, I've wondered about having a European televote, rather than from individual countries. Seeing as, in the show, we only get told the totals, it seems that we could take this a step further and instead of only hearing about a country's top ten in the televote, all televotes (as a percentage of each country's vote ofc, not wanting to favour those with larger televote audiences!) get thrown into a giant Europe-wide pot and points get allocated based on that. We'd still get the same result in the arena with countries getting a single block of points announced, but it would allow a fairer reflection of how Europe voted. It would also (I reckon) massively reduce the chances of anyone getting 0 in the televote - with 39 countries voting, you'd only need 0.04% of the overall televote to get a point, rather than needing to be in at least one country's top ten to do so.

It'll never happen, ofc, because it would entail revealing FAR too much of the televote totals and the EBU seems loathe to reveal anything about them

 

[GermanBango]

Ever since the split of the televote and the jury vote, I've wondered about having a European televote, rather than from individual countries. Seeing as, in the show, we only get told the totals, it seems that we could take this a step further and instead of only hearing about a country's top ten in the televote, all televotes (as a percentage of each country's vote ofc, not wanting to favour those with larger televote audiences!) get thrown into a giant Europe-wide pot and points get allocated based on that. We'd still get the same result in the arena with countries getting a single block of points announced, but it would allow a fairer reflection of how Europe voted. It would also (I reckon) massively reduce the chances of anyone getting 0 in the televote - with 39 countries voting, you'd only need 0.04% of the overall televote to get a point, rather than needing to be in at least one country's top ten to do so.

It'll never happen, ofc, because it would entail revealing FAR too much of the televote totals and the EBU seems loathe to reveal anything about them

Thanks for putting my thoughts into words, twin.

 

[b4ld3r]

It would be nice, but the rule is there for a reason and I think they need to simply put the limit somewhere (not that I think countries would show up with 10 minutes opuses but still).

Sure, some sort of limit would still need to be in place. Personally I think a 4 minute limit is more fair, considering the usual length of a modern chartable song is like 3:30. Worth noting that the top two of the televote this year was not written with ESC explicitly in mind, and then trimmed down for the contest.

 

[A-lister]

Ever since the split of the televote and the jury vote, I've wondered about having a European televote, rather than from individual countries. Seeing as, in the show, we only get told the totals, it seems that we could take this a step further and instead of only hearing about a country's top ten in the televote, all televotes (as a percentage of each country's vote ofc, not wanting to favour those with larger televote audiences!) get thrown into a giant Europe-wide pot and points get allocated based on that. We'd still get the same result in the arena with countries getting a single block of points announced, but it would allow a fairer reflection of how Europe voted. It would also (I reckon) massively reduce the chances of anyone getting 0 in the televote - with 39 countries voting, you'd only need 0.04% of the overall televote to get a point, rather than needing to be in at least one country's top ten to do so.

It'll never happen, ofc, because it would entail revealing FAR too much of the televote totals and the EBU seems loathe to reveal anything about them

Hmm, interesting but question is would it really work in practice? Each country needs to have equal say otherwise the big ones will dominate the outcome and Eurovision would be dead basically.

Anyways, I don't really get why everyone needs to get points, like I wrote earlier 0 points is totally fair as well, entries shouldn't get points only for showing up, so they need to step up their game instead.

 

[A-lister]

Sure, some sort of limit would still need to be in place. Personally I think a 4 minute limit is more fair, considering the usual length of a modern chartable song is like 3:30. Worth noting that the top two of the televote this year was not written with ESC explicitly in mind, and then trimmed down for the contest.

I get it, I mean 3 minutes is a bit short, but let's pretend all entries would go in with 4 minutes, the show would last 30 minutes longer... I mean not that I mind personally, but I am not sure about the broadcasters and average viewer at home? It will be more to digest.

 

[HayashiM]

Ever since the split of the televote and the jury vote, I've wondered about having a European televote, rather than from individual countries. Seeing as, in the show, we only get told the totals, it seems that we could take this a step further and instead of only hearing about a country's top ten in the televote, all televotes (as a percentage of each country's vote ofc, not wanting to favour those with larger televote audiences!) get thrown into a giant Europe-wide pot and points get allocated based on that. We'd still get the same result in the arena with countries getting a single block of points announced, but it would allow a fairer reflection of how Europe voted. It would also (I reckon) massively reduce the chances of anyone getting 0 in the televote - with 39 countries voting, you'd only need 0.04% of the overall televote to get a point, rather than needing to be in at least one country's top ten to do so.

It'll never happen, ofc, because it would entail revealing FAR too much of the televote totals and the EBU seems loathe to reveal anything about them

I assume you'd want to keep the rule of not being able to vote for your own country. I think this has two downsides:
1. The big countries get disadvantaged, because there's fewer people able to vote for them.
2. The big countries' taste gets preferential treatment, simply because they have higher bargaining power. Most often I find the "all countries should have equal power" (hello US politics) argument very wrong, but I here I see it having a point, as otherwise the big 5 + Russia could just run the competition by themselves. It's not a president we're voting for.

All in all, each country awarding the same amount of points is something I'd rather not change.

 

[HayashiM]

My contribution: make it a rule any Eurovision draw should adhere to some basic standards, because the current state of things and "shuffling" of countries in allocation draws is a crime against statistics. Any person who knows how decent shuffling really works must laugh their ass off, or more probably, feel seriously offended by this comedy.

 

[anto475]

Every vocalist has to be shown on screen.

There we go, that was my third rule I forgot!!

 

[b4ld3r]

I get it, I mean 3 minutes is a bit short, but let's pretend all entries would go in with 4 minutes, the show would last 30 minutes longer... I mean not that I mind personally, but I am not sure about the broadcasters and average viewer at home? It will be more to digest.

Yeah, true! Albeit I'm sure a lot of viewers would be very happy if some of the neverending interval acts would be trimmed down, if that's what it comes down to lol. And to be fair, increasing the accepted length of songs wouldn't necessarily reduce the amount of bland stuff originating from songwriting camps, maybe just make those entries longer

 

[Lupus]

I assume you'd want to keep the rule of not being able to vote for your own country. I think this has two downsides:
1. The big countries get disadvantaged, because there's fewer people able to vote for them.
2. The big countries' taste gets preferential treatment, simply because they have higher bargaining power. Most often I find the "all countries should have equal power" (hello US politics) argument very wrong, but I here I see it having a point, as otherwise the big 5 + Russia could just run the competition by themselves. It's not a president we're voting for.

All in all, each country awarding the same amount of points is something I'd rather not change.

Hmm, interesting but question is would it really work in practice? Each country needs to have equal say otherwise the big ones will dominate the outcome and Eurovision would be dead basically.

Anyways, I don't really get why everyone needs to get points, like I wrote earlier 0 points is totally fair as well, entries shouldn't get points only for showing up, so they need to step up their game instead.

Apologies both, I did not make that point clear enough! I would convert the raw televote for each country to a percentage before adding it to the total - I would never want to lose the equal weighting of countries as it would utterly spoil the balance!

@A-lister I get your point about 0 points, but at the end of the day, even if it is just a few televoters, surely they deserve to have their voice heard at least slightly? I'm not suggesting that any of the nul pointers get points for being a lot of people's 8th choice or something; people would still need to actually VOTE for them as one of their favourites!

@GermanBango hope this hasn't changed your opinion on my original post, dear twin!

 

[ESCConor]

Another suggestion I have is to merge Semi Final 1 and 2 and revert back to having a single one instead.

It would save money and allow everyone a fair shot at the final.

 

[HayashiM]

Apologies both, I did not make that point clear enough! I would convert the raw televote for each country to a percentage before adding it to the total - I would never want to lose the equal weighting of countries as it would utterly spoil the balance!

@A-lister I get your point about 0 points, but at the end of the day, even if it is just a few televoters, surely they deserve to have their voice heard at least slightly? I'm not suggesting that any of the nul pointers get points for being a lot of people's 8th choice or something; people would still need to actually VOTE for them as one of their favourites!

@GermanBango hope this hasn't changed your opinion on my original post, dear twin!

I jumped to my conclusion too early without reading carefuly enough, sorry about that.

Now I actually quite like the idea!

Of course, there's a few implications to ponder. How is the usual televote distribution, how big % of it would probably go to the winner and how would that impact the televote-jury balance? If the televote winner usually gets 10% of the votes (which could probably translate to around 220 points), that would mean the juries would've probably been more important for choosing who wins. 15%->330 points and we have a balance. 20%-> 440 points and the juries are pretty much out...

 

[A-lister]

Another suggestion I have is to merge Semi Final 1 and 2 and revert back to having a single one instead.

It would save money and allow everyone a fair shot at the final.

And have a semi of 30+ entrants? I think the current system makes sense.

 

[tomos2019]

The only definite things I want are some sort of language restrictions and at least when it comes to the UK more leniency when it comes to sovereign states (i.e. at least Wales is technically in Europe and even though it would still only be England in the big 5 at least it would reflect the whole island's music better, plus Wales is a fairly musical nation and I don't know why you would pass up the opportunity to have the Welsh language but that's just me!)

I do think Liechtenstein debut would be deserved after a very long time and I'd like to see Andorra or Slovakia return, plus I like the idea of a ranking all 26 songs system as opposed to points-based but it would probably have to be somewhat optional because of casual viewers, I do think it is time to finally find a way of banishing the 0 points though!

 

[Chalphon]

Discuss!

These are my proposals:

• Abolishment of pre-recorded backing vocals.
• Increasing the maximum amount of people allowed on stage from 6 to 8 (or 10 even), I think it's a good compromise between only allowing live vocals and still make it possible for dancers to do their thing. Also, it's long overdue tbh, 6 has been a very low number for years now and is just and odd number in this time and age.
• Acts and songwriters/composers need to have a proven connection to the music market of the country they represent, no more shopping around for entries! The concept of Eurovision is entries representing their countries, I feel like we diverged from that. It doesn't mean that all songwriters/composers need to come from said country, but at least they need to be an active part of that music scene (past Eurovision entries don't count here!). I am fully aware that some music markets are integrated and that micro-states are 'de facto' part of their neighbors' markets, but a change of rule would take that into consideration while still protect the concept of entries actually representing their countries.
• Running order needs to be random! I think we pretty much established now that letting the "producers" choose it opens up to favoritism, corruption and tactics. We should have a transparent and fair system, and there a methods to keep a nice flow in the production (draw the songs from genre/tempo pots for instance).
• Abolishment of juries (now I am not delusional and know it won't happen, but at least decrease their powers to a 40/60 situation in favor of televoters).
• Have it explicitly written into the rules of Eurovision that only recognized independent countries that are at least partially geographically within the European continent, or at least have a history of a minimum of 5 previous entries in the contest, can take part and scrap the idea of the dated European Broadcasting Area (that EBU don't even follow themselves). This would close the door to any risk of having countries like USA, China, Qatar, Morocco, Lebanon, Canada or others joining. It's not EUROvision if the world can join! Let's protect the brand and concept!
• Have the juries verbally give out 8-12 points (I know it would make the show longer, but don't we want more suspense? I know that we can't go back to the old days of giving out 1-12 when we have so many countries and also split the televoting results, but this could be a compromise that could still work).
• Re-establishing the language rule (another idealistic fantasy that won't happen, but that's just my opinion).

1. Agreed, pre-recordings need to be only this year due to covid, it has to be gone next year.
2. Agreed, 6 is too low.
3. No, let everyone send whoever they want. People talk about Eurovision like we lost the original thought of entrys being vastly different to one another due to cultural differencies. I would argue that that is not the case. In the early years of the competition the entrys were a lot more alike each other genre-wise than they are now.
4. Agreed, this needs to be addressed further.
5. No, just no. Televoters go for flare and shock-value, juries go for craftmanship and execution. They need to stay equal.
6. No, let countries apply if they want to and make a case by case decision.
7. No, the voting takes longer than needed already. Also, the horrible procrastination by the show hosts this year should not be allowed to happend again.
8. No, let everyone sing in whatever language they want.

 

[Chalphon]

One of the Big 5 members should be randomly drawn to perform in a semi final, so that they would experience what it takes to be under the pressure of not making it to the grand final.

That would be interesting, or they could take turns in a fixed schedule.

 

[rasmuslights]

Am I the only one who kinda wants the pre-recorded vocals to stay? I think the sound of the entries this year was much better compared to previous years!

 

[Elina UA]

The juries should go!
The joke entries should thrive!

Also everyone should sing in their native language.