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Who will be the expert jurors for Eurovision 2017?

29 April 2017 at 18:00 CEST
The winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest
The results of the Eurovision Song Contest are decided by you, the public, alongside a group of expert juries in each participating country. Today we can reveal the names of the music industry professions who will cast their votes in the Semi-Finals and Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Each national jury is made up of five music industry professionals who will evaluate each entry. The jury members are asked to judge the vocal capacity of the singer, the performance on-stage, the composition and originality of the song and the overall impression of the act. Jurors rank all entries, except their own country's contribution, in order.

Update 8 May 2017: The composition of the juries in Australia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Norway have changed.

Update 12 May 2017: The composition of the juries in Moldova, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Azerbaijan have changed.

What happens when

Jury voting traditionally takes place during the Dress Rehearsal in the evening prior to each live show. The rehearsal is broadcast to the juries via satellite and their individual voting results are to be kept secret until after the Grand Final. 

Juries and televoters from all 42 participating countries will vote in the Grand Final. For each Semi-Final, only juries and televoters from the countries that take part in the respective Semi-Final will vote. The so-called 'Big Five' — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom — and host country Ukraine have been allocated to vote in one of the two Semi-Finals by draw.

Keeping things fair

To keep things fair, the work of the juries is supervised by a notary in each country, and the EBU's independent observers of PwC reserve the right to pay ad-hoc surprise visits to the jury panel in order to ensure that the voting is being conducted in accordance with the Rules of the Eurovision Song Contest. After the submission of their vote, the EBU and PwC work together to check and verify the jury results. In case of apparent irregularities, a national jury vote may be discarded.

To become a juror...

There are strict admission rules to become a member of the jury.

  • Members of the jury must not have been part of the jury in the previous two years;
  • Members of the jury must be at least 16 on the day they vote;
  • Members of the jury must not be employees of Participating Broadcasters;
  • Members of the jury must pursue a profession in or related to the music industry;
  • Members of the jury shall be citizens of the country they represent;
  • No member of a jury shall be connected in any way with any of the participating songs entered and/or artists performing in the contest in such a way that they cannot vote in complete independence and impartiality.

Juries are being selected by the Participating Broadcaster that represents each country. For example; the Estonian jury is appointed by ERR, while the UK jury is appointed by the BBC, and so on.

Facts and figures

A total of 210 jurors — five in each of the 42 participating countries — will vote. 

The youngest jurors, aged 16, come from FYR Macedonia and Ukraine. The oldest, at 76, will be part of the United Kingdom's jury. The average age of the jurors is 40 years old. 

97 jurors are female, 112 are male. One vacancy — in Austria — is still to be filled.

Several of this year's jury members have previously participated in the Eurovision Song Contest, either as contestant, composer or even conductor. Amongst those we found: 

  • Kobi Oshrat (Israeli conductor 1979, 1985, 1987, 1991, 1992)
  • Nicole (Germany 1982)
  • Daniela Simmons (Switzerland 1986)
  • Darja Švajger (Slovenia 1995, 1999)
  • Chiara (Malta 1998, 2005, 2009)
  • Tal Sondak (Israel 2001)
  • David Civera (Spain 2001)
  • Luminita Anghel (Romania 2005)
  • Mihai Traistariu (Romania 2006)
  • Olta Boka (Albania 2008)
  • Getter Jaani (Estonia 2011)
  • Magdalena Tul (Poland 2011)
  • Zoë (Austria 2016)

What happens next

Since 2014 the EBU has published the names of jury members ahead of the Eurovision Song Contest. 

As last year, the jury and public votes will be presented separately in the Grand Final.

Shortly after the Grand Final, the voting results of each individual juror will be published on Eurovision.tv.