Finnish broadcaster YLE revealed that it will raise questions to the EBU regarding the voting in Eurovision. They join other European broadcasters asking for a review, but with a twist: YLE could push for a bigger televote share in the contest.
A bigger, but safer televote?
Juha Lahti, executive producer at YLE, has stated that internal debates about the voting system had been brewing for some time.
We will ask the EBU whether it is time to update these rules or at least to look at whether the current rules allow for abuse.
Juha Lahti
This comes as YLE starts to push for a bigger impact from the televote in the final results. Currently, the televote accounts for slightly more than 50% of the final results, because the “Rest of the World” adds an extra televote source compared to the juries. In Finland’s national selection UMK, however, the televote accounts for 75% of the final results.
Such a push is not particularly in line with the concerns rose by other broadcasters, who have cast doubts about the legitimacy and transparency of the public voting. These concerns are still partly shared by YLE, though, as they admit that a “bigger” televote also needs to be safe from manipulation.
Especially if we are heading towards a situation where the public vote would have more weight, we should really think about whether it makes sense for one person to vote twenty times.
Juha Lahti
YLE’s article does stat that the Israeli government supported its delegation through a massive use of targeted, online advertising, which is seen as an issue by some broadcasters. YLE, however, does not call for Israel’s exclusion from the contest as of now.
Issues with the juries?
Lahti also mentions Käärijä’s televote victory in 2023, and how a system weighted in favour of the public vote would have brought Finland victory at the time. It also mentions the jury results of the 2025 edition, where the votes of the juries were very spread.
This spread meant that the top scorer, Austria, did not reach a very high score (258, the second smallest, just above North Macedonia’s 247 in 2019). The top 3 itself only gathered 652 points together, the smallest amount for a top three since the beginning of the jury/televote split.
Despite this, the debates over voting have not been particularly critical of juries recently, with other Eurovision actors (such as Iceland’s head of delegation, Felix Bergsson) suggesting strengthening their position instead, by getting jury voting back into the semi-finals.
What do you think about YLE’s proposition? Should we strengthen the weight or the televote, or keep it as it is? And what will be the result of internal EBU debates when such contrasting views are held by different broadcasters? Tell us more in the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!
You could strengthen the televote just by giving out the televote points proportionally instead of converting to the 12 point system. That would mean huge televote winners like Finland 2023 would be able to get more than 12 points out of the 58 each country’s televote could give, which would be more reflective of the actual success of the song. It’s unfair right now that country A could receive 50% of the televote in country B and get 12 points. While country C could get like 4% of the televote and get 10 points from country B.
Of course we need to figure out a way to stop the manipulation of the televote first…
50/50 televoting and juries could be fine, if juries had more members, maybe 20-30 per country. Then the result from a jury would be more reliable.