Who will be in the expert juries?

07 May 2014 at 22:11 CEST

The European Broadcasting Union and the Eurovision Song Contest Reference Group have decided to reveal the names of the national jurors who will be voting in the Grand Final and one respective Semi-Final of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in advance to create more openness.

SEE THE FULL LIST (updated on 7th of May)

UPDATE (7th of May): Change in Lithuania, F.Y.R. Macedonia replaced juror with backup juror

UPDATE (5th of May), changes in the following juries: Albania (1), Israel (4), Romania (name correction)

In addition to that, the individual rankings of all jury members will be revealed shortly after the Grand Final on Eurovision.tv.

Notable jury members

The national juries comprise many well-known and popular artists, notably also some former Eurovision Song Contest participants:

  • Inga & Anush who represented Armenia in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest with Jan Jan
  • Stella Jones represented Austria in 1995 with Die Welt dreht Sich Verkehrt
  • Nigar Jamal won the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest as part of the duo Ell/Nikki
  • Iris represented Belgium in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest
  • Bob Savenberg represented Belgium in 1991 as part of Clouseau
  • Lise Cabble was in the songwriting team of Only Teardrops, last year's winning song
  • Kaija Kärkinen represented Finland in 1991 with Hullu Yö
  • Yohanna came second for Iceland in 2009 with Is It True
  • Charlie McGettigan won the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest together with Paul Harrington
  • Liam Reilly represented Ireland in 1990 with Somewhere In Europe
  • Nelly Ciobanu represented Moldova in 2009 with Hora Din Moldova
  • Stefan Filipović represented Montenegro in 2008 with Zauvijek Volim Te
  • Ruth Jacott represented The Netherlands in 1993 with Vrede
  • Marlayne represented The Netherlands in 1999 with One Good Reason
  • Magdalena Tul represented Poland in 2011 with Jestem
  • Mietek Szcześniak represented Poland in the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest
  • Nicoleta Matei represented Romania together with Vlad Miriță in 2008
  • Ivan Broggini is part of Sinplus who represented Switzerland in 2012
  • Carrie Grant was part of Sweet Dreams, the band representing the UK in 1983
  • Avet Barseghyan hosted the 2011 Junior Eurovision Song Contest

"We believe that presenting the jury members before the contest is an important contribution to more openness and we are very pleased to see that so many music industry professionals came on board to support the Eurovision Song Contest," says Jon Ola Sand, Executive Supervisor of the contest at the EBU, to Eurovision.tv.

Jury member selection criteria

All jury members are music professionals. They are being asked to judge:

  • vocal capacity
  • the performance on stage
  • the composition and originality of the song
  • the overall impression by the act 

The average age of the jurors is 40 years old, 79 members are female, 106 are male.

The EBU has looked into each jury member together with Digame and PwC, to assure they meet the requirements to take seat in a national jury. Note that all jurors signed to vote independently. Changes to the list of jurors may occur due to unforeseen circumstances in the week to come, and they will be announced on Eurovision.tv.

The following criteria were applied in the selection of the jury members:

  • Members shall not have been part of a National Jury the preceding two years.
  • Members of the National Juries must be music industry professionals 
  • There shall be a balance among the members of each National Jury to ensure sufficient representativeness in terms of gender, age and background. 
  • All members of the National Juries shall be citizens of the country they represent. 
  • No member of a National Jury shall be connected in any way with any of the participating songs entered and/or artists performing in the Eurovision Song Contest in such a way that they cannot vote in complete independence and impartiality

Judges signed a declaration stating they will vote independently.

The voting rules

Viewers in the countries of the Participating Broadcasters are invited to vote for their favourite songs (without the possibility of voting for the song representing their own country) by means of televoting. In addition, in each participating country, there is a National Jury.

With respect to the televoting, the song which has received the highest number of votes shall be ranked first, the song which has received the second highest number of votes shall be ranked second and so on until the last song.

With respect to the National Jury voting, the jury members shall rank first their favourite song, second, their second favourite song, third, their third favourite song, and so on until their least favourite song, which shall be ranked last.

The rankings of the televoting and the jury will then, in each of the participating countries, used to calculate the average rank of each song. This combined ranking will then be transformed to the well-known and popular "Eurovision system", with the top-ranked song getting 12 points, the second-highest ranked song 10 points, and the remaining spots, from 8 points to 1 point, given to the songs ranked 3 to 10.