{"id":394572,"date":"2025-11-21T11:56:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394572\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T11:56:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T11:56:12","slug":"eurovision-changes-rules-after-israel-public-vote-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394572\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision Changes Rules After Israel Public Vote Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Eurovision<\/a> Song Contest is implementing new rules around its voting system after uproar around Israel\u2019s result in May.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen entrant Yuval Raphael sang \u201cNew Day Will Rise\u201d at the competition held in Basel, Switzerland, she swiftly topped the public voting charts and later placed second to Austria when the jury scores were counted.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut some counties, including broadcasters in Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Iceland and Finland, raised concerns about the public vote and requested an audit. Organizers of the contest at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said the vote was checked and verified.<\/p>\n

\n\tNow, the song contest has restructured its voting and promotion rules ahead of next year\u2019s edition in Vienna, Austria. \u201cWe\u2019ve listened and we\u2019ve acted,\u201d said Eurovision director Martin Green. \u201cThe neutrality and integrity of the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a> is of paramount importance to the EBU, its members, and all our audiences. It is essential that the fairness of the Contest is always protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t It comes as the contest \u2014\u00a0in most years considered a joyous, eccentric celebration of the world\u2019s music \u2014\u00a0has turned sour through the last few editions as increasingly polarizing geopolitics loom over the show.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany countries and participants have objected to Israel\u2019s taking part<\/a> over the war in Gaza. Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain\u00a0are among those that have threatened to boycott 2026\u2019s contest unless Israel is excluded.<\/p>\n

\n\tEurovision organizers had vowed to talk to all of its members and hold a vote<\/a> on Israel\u2019s participation in November. It is unclear if the following rule changes are intended to appease the widespread outrage. <\/p>\n

\n\tFans will now only be able to cast 10 votes each \u2014\u00a0down from 20 \u2014 and juries will return for the semi-finals for the first time since 2022, creating a 50-50 split vote between jury and audience votes at the final. All jurors, the number of which has been increased to seven from five, will be forced to sign a formal declaration confirming they will vote independently and impartially. Jurors aged 18-25 will be added to \u201creflect the appeal\u201d of the contest with younger audiences.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe EBU is also barring its participating broadcasters and artists from \u201cactively\u201d engaging in, facilitating or contributing to promotional campaigns by third parties \u201cthat could influence the voting outcome and, as outlined in the updated Code of Conduct, any attempts to unduly influence the results will lead to sanctions.\u201d Reports at the time said Israeli government agency paid for ads and used state social media accounts to urge audiences to vote for Raphael, according to the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThese measures are designed to keep the focus where it belongs \u2014 on music, creativity and connection,\u201d said Green.\u00a0\u201cWhile we are confident the 2025 Contest delivered a valid and robust result, these changes will help provide stronger safeguards and increase engagement so fans can be sure that every vote counts and every voice is heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Eurovision Song Contest must always remain a place where music takes centre stage \u2014\u00a0and where we continue to stand truly United by Music,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 2026 Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final will take place on Saturday, May 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Eurovision Song Contest is implementing new rules around its voting system after uproar around Israel\u2019s result in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,27200,27202,1801,72757,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-394572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-eurovision","10":"tag-eurovision-song-contest","11":"tag-international","12":"tag-israel-gaza-conflict","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115587566140387689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}