By Francois Murphy
VIENNA, May 11 (Reuters) – This week’s Eurovision Song Contest, already stung by boycotts over Israeli participation, is also facing a test of new public-voting rules introduced to address complaints about Israel’s ability to mobilise votes in the last competition.
The contest, a celebration of pop music and high camp now in its 70th year, is no stranger to tussles over voting records and rivalries between the national broadcasters taking part.
Its organiser, the European Broadcasting Union, brought in new regulations for 2026 to discourage states and other third parties from “disproportionate promotion campaigns” after several broadcasters raised concerns about the result, citing Israel’s unusually strong showing in the public vote last year.
‘DISPROPORTIONATE MARKETING’
Israel – which says it plays by the rules – got 83% of its points from the public for its song “New Day Will Rise” and came second overall. The winner, Austria’s “Wasted Love”, got just 41% of its votes from the public, and had to rely on the support of national juries to power its way to the top.
Posts and photos from the Israel X account run by Israel’s foreign ministry and dated on the day that Israel competed in last year’s semi-final had encouraged people to vote for its singer Yuval Raphael, adding that “you can vote up to 20 times”.
“We saw some activity last year which we could describe as disproportionate marketing and promotional activity that we felt was out of sync with the nature of the show, so we put some rules in about that,” Eurovision Song Contest Director Martin Green told Reuters, without referring directly to the posts.
Another change in the rules was to only allow each public caller – identified by their payment method – to cast 10 votes for their favourite songs, half the 20 allowed last year.
On Saturday, Green said he had given Israel’s national broadcaster KAN a formal warning over videos posted online by this year’s entrant Noam Bettan with an instruction to “vote 10 times for Israel”.
Directly calling for 10 votes for an entry was not in line with ESC rules or the spirit of the competition, it said.
Israel, which has often said it faces a global smear campaign, particularly since the eruption of the Gaza war, did not respond directly to a question over its promotional efforts last year.
Responding to the warning over Bettan’s videos, KAN said it “follows all EBU rules”.
“The matter in question concerns an independent initiative carried out by the artist’s close personal team, without any prohibited financing, similar to activities conducted by other contestants as well,” it added.
‘WE ARE THE OLYMPICS OF MUSIC’
The episode underlines the challenges the contest faces as it adjusts boundaries in what the EBU says is already the world’s biggest and most complex television voting operation.
“All countries ask their people, particularly their diasporas – because of course you can’t vote for your own country in your own country – to get behind (them). It’s a sport. We are the Olympics of music, so there’s nothing unusual about that,” Green said in an interview on Friday.
The EBU said it is encouraging the public to spread their votes between more than one song. It was also bringing in safeguards to prevent fraud.
It was still possible for members of the public to register three times using each of the three allowed forms of payment – online, by text message and by phone call – and end up casting 30 votes.
But no system was perfect and there were merits to spreading votes out, said Juan Moreno-Ternero, professor of economics at Pablo de Olavide University in Seville, Spain, who published an academic paper in 2022 on Eurovision voting.
“You can always find pros and cons for almost any protocol,” he added. “All voting rules, no matter what, are subject to manipulation.”
(Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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