The Swedish public broadcaster SVT, organizer of the next Eurovision 2024 festival from Malmö, announced this Monday two new features in this year's edition, in which Israel will finally participate.
For the first time, the representatives of the Big Five, the five countries that make the greatest economic contribution to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), that is, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, and the host nation, which in This case is Sweden, they will perform their songs live during the semifinals, although, as until now, they will only be exposed to the vote of the audience and the experts in the final on Saturday.
These six countries have the privilege of going directly to the final without running the risk of being eliminated before Saturday's gala, which hundreds of millions of people around the world tune in to. That rule will continue to be the case, but that advantage also brought a disadvantage for those six direct finalists. By not appearing in the semifinals beyond a brief presentation video, her live proposal reached the final being unknown to the followers of the contest. On the other hand, the rest of the participating countries had already been able to show their song and performance live in the semi-final on Tuesday or Thursday and, from that moment on, through social networks.
This means that we will not have to wait to see the final bet of Bitch of Nebulossa, the Spanish representative, until Saturday, May 11. The order of performances of these six out-of-competition participants will have Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom in the semi-final on Tuesday, May 7, and France, Italy and Spain in the semi-final on Thursday, May 9. The three invited countries will not participate in the interval after the official performances, but will be interspersed with them.
The second change that the Swedish network has announced for Malmö 2024 is the extension of the voting window in the final, but not in the semifinals. In almost all the last editions of Eurovision, the Saturday voting round opened right at the end of the performances. This time, with all the songs already performed live between Tuesday and Thursday, including those from the Big Five and the host, voting on Saturday will be available just before the first live song plays. Viewers at home will be able to cast their votes as the songs are performed, rather than waiting until all nominations have been submitted, as has been the case in almost every edition since public voting was introduced in 1997.
Additionally, fans watching Eurovision from other countries around the world will have almost 24 hours to vote for their favorite songs before each of the live shows begins. Online voting will open to the rest of the world immediately after the second dress rehearsal for each semi-final and grand final ends the night before, and will remain open until the live galas begin.
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