The voting in the Eurovision Song Contest is set to be radically transformed in 2016. In previous years the results of the professional juries and viewers have been presented as a combined result, each accounting for 50 percent of the final score. From 2016, the professional juries and televoters from each country will each award a separate set of points from 1 to 8, 10 and 12. This now means the top 10 countries in both the jury and televote will receive points, adding a new level of excitement for hundreds of millions of viewers in Europe and beyond.

How does it work?

After viewers have cast their votes by telephone, SMS or using the official app, each national spokesperson from the 43 participating countries will be called in to present the points of their professional jury. After the presentation of the scores from the juries, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score for each song. These televoting results will then be announced by the host, starting with the country receiving the fewest points from the public and ending with the country that received the highest number of points, building towards a guaranteed climax.

For those wanting to know how their country has voted, the televoting and jury scores from each participating country will be available after the show on Eurovision.tv.

HOWEVER, the one element I don't like is the proposal for how San Marino et al will do televotes - they'll average out the votes of countries with 'similar voting patterns' to create a virtual televote for those countries, which seems LUDICROUS and open to a lot of skewing, especially at the semi final level.

This is screwing up the stats if the amount of points being awarded is doubled. And what are the chances of another nil pointer now

HOWEVER, the one element I don't like is the proposal for how San Marino et al will do televotes - they'll average out the votes of countries with 'similar voting patterns' to create a virtual televote for those countries, which seems LUDICROUS and open to a lot of skewing, especially at the semi final level.

looks complicated. people are guaranteed to be confised as f*** during the results

I can imagine they'd do the lower televotes in blocks unless they really want to get the tension going.

(everyone who approved the decision for spokespeople to be only announcing 12s can go screw themselves)

Uh, not really. It's the Melodifestivalen system. Juries announce their points. Then the televote gets announced in a single block.