The jury final of the 13th edition of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2015 takes place later this evening, but what is the jury final?
What is the jury final for?
The jury final is the show in which the juries from all the 17 competing countries will be voting upon. It means that the performances in the show tonight have to be as good as the performances that they will give tomorrow night to the voting audience across Europe.
The juries have 100% say in two countries?
There are however some countries tonight where the performances tonight will be deciding 100% of their vote, these countries are Australia and San Marino. Australia will be broadcasting the show live but it was decided that due to the early time in the morning that it is being broadcast at that a jury will decide all of Australia’s voting. San Marino is using 100% jury voting as they do not have an independent telephone network as a country, the San Marinese network is part of the Italian telephone network.
How are the juries ranking the countries?
As with the Eurovision Song Contest each of the jurors will be ranking the performances from each country from their favourite to their least favourite. This means that their favourite performer will be ranked 1 while their least favourite will be ranked 16.
What impact does the jury have?
The juries can have a big impact on the outcome of the contest. Last year thanks to one San Marinese jury Croatia picked up their only point in the contest, if the jury vote had not been used than Croatia would have scored 0 points other than the 12 each country is given at the start of the voting.
Furthermore last years Italian win in the contest was mainly thanks to Italy scoring 143 points in the jury vote and Bulgaria scoring 86 points. This meant that even though Bulgaria topped the televote with 143 points and Italy scored 100 points, it was able to win the contest by 12 points.
Who is on each jury?
Each national jury is made up of 5 individuals who have experience in entertainment and music. Who is on each countries jury is up to their national broadcaster however the EBU must sign off that they are happy with each jury.
For example on the Australian jury are:
- Richard Wilkins – Entertainment presenter
- Murray Cook – Member of the kids band The Wiggles
- Monica Trapaga – Musician
- Ben Thatcher – Children’s Entertainer
- Natasha Cupitt – Vocal coach and choir conductor
What is the Kid’s Jury?
Each country will be represented by one child aged between 10 and 15, they will also be voting on the jury show tonight. These children have a music background, for example in previous years have included past participants of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Each of these children’s votes will be combined together to give an overall “Kids jury” result.
