Latvia: Brand new voting system, more submissions than ever before

In the last couple of hours, Latvian broadcaster LTV has announced that 168 songs have been submitted for Supernova 2017 with 89 artists applying to take part. 168 song submissions betters the amount of songs submitted to the two previous editions of Supernova: 98 songs were submitted for the 2015 competition and 120 songs were submitted a year later. The number of artists to apply has also increased by one on last year, although doesn’t break the record set by Supernova 2015 when 123 artists applied for participation.
Producer of Supernova 2017, Ilze Janosne, has stated to LTV that he is “pleased” with the number of applications and that the work the team behind Supernova has put in since its launch in 2015 has been validated by the large number of songs submitted by various songwriters and composers. All of the submissions are now being examined to ensure they are eligible to take part and the jury will select between 40 and 50 artists to take part in auditions to be held at the end of this month. The names of the entries that make the live shows will be announced in late January.
LTV have also reiterated who makes up the four member international jury panel for the Latvian national selection, and the jury members are as follows:

• Joy Deb (co-author of Eurovision 2015 winning song “Heroes”)
• Petri Mannonen (Universal Music Group Finland)
• Matthias Müller (BMG Rights Management and Crazy Planet Records Germany)
• Fruzsina Szép (Festival Director at Lollapalooza Berlin Germany)

This isn’t the only news to be announced by LTV in recent days. Last week the Supernova organisers revealed that, for the first time ever in a Eurovision national selection, data from Spotify will be integrated into the national vote and will play a significant part in determining the winner of Supernova 2017. Producer, Ilze Janosne, says that co-operating with Spotify will create the opportunity to “reach new audiences” and include data from “real music consumers”. Supernova international jury member Petri Mannonen also praises the decision, explaining that “the more a song is being listened to, the more likely it is to become a hit – it’s a fact”.
Are you excited for Supernova 2017? What do you think of the decision to make Supernova the first ever Eurovision selection to integrate Spotify data into the voting? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

News source: LTV // Image source: BBC