NRK has revealed more details of the voting issues that occurred during the final of Melodi Grand Prix this evening.
The Norwegian public broadcaster has come under criticism from the public and media for the failure of the online voting platform for Melodi Grand Prix. During the voting after the first round of performances the platform to vote on the NRK website failed, 19 minutes later at 21:39 it was announced that the voting issue had been resolved.
Due to the failure of the online vote after round one, a back up jury was used to determine the four acts who qualified for the next round. Stig Karlsen explained how this jury worked:
There are 30 people who are of course composed in a representative way from all over the country at different ages.
When asked about whether it is right for 30 people to decide when 1 million people watch the show he added:
This is a back-up to when things aren’t going well. We are left with a winner who has been a favorite of all time.
This was the first time NRK has used online voting at the contest:
This was intended as an interactive, free vote offering for everyone. There are certainly some who are disappointed and upset today, but what we see is that there has also been a popular party. But we are very sorry for what went wrong.
The failure of the online voting system has been partially blamed on the number of reactions that viewers at home gave to the performances. According to the shows producers a total of 38 million emojis were sent during the show, this according to NRK producers appears to be the root of the failure.
This is the second time that voting issues were reported during Melodi Grand Prix, with similar issues occurring during the first show at the start of January.
Ulrikke will represent Norway at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song ‘Attention’. Ulrikke will perform in the second half of the first semi-final on May 12.
Source: NRK
Norway debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960, and have won the contest three times – in 1985, 1995 and 2009. The country has the dubious record of finishing last the most times, eleven in total, and have received nul points four times. Norway last won the contest in 2009 when Alexander Rybak broke all records with his song “Fairytale”. He scored 387 points in the final, receiving 16 sets of 12 points and scoring points from every country.
