Since the Rest of the World Vote, or the ROTW televote, was established in 2023, it attracted a new set of voters to the contest. Fans from 146 countries cast their vote in the 2025 contest--this not only included people from previous participants such as Turkey, Hungary, and Romania–but also those from countries as faraway as the United States, Mexico, and South Africa. It’s not only a good way for fans from non-participating countries to get involved in the outcome, but also provides a nice cash flow for the EBU.
However, this leaves a bit of imbalance, with one more televoting country than the number of juries available. Herein comes the possibility of a Rest of the World jury, featuring musicians, choreographers, and theorists from all over the world. It would not only expand the genres which these jurors are more familiar with, but also provide a more diverse and inclusive perspective on the entries. Despite the recent diversification of the contest, Eurovision is still seen as a stage for pop music, and a ROTW jury could be a way to ameliorate that.
For the first forty years of the contest, Eurovision juries featured a mix of musicians, people in the entertainment industry, and even civilians from across the street. Their job was to judge the songs on their merits and decide on a winner. However, starting from the mid-1980s, their votes started to misalign with real-world music trends, which resulted in fewer Eurovision entries becoming international hits and lower viewership across the continent. After “Ooh, Aah, Just a Little Bit” became a major hit despite coming in eighth in the 1996 contest, five countries tested out a televote in 1997, which was expanded to everybody by 1998. Yet by the mid-2000s, concerns over diaspora voting, along with the increase in troll entries, resulted in juries in the juries returning in the 2009 contest to decide half the result.
The juries in Eurovision today judge the participating songs with four pieces of criteria: vocal capacity of the artists, the composition and uniqueness of the song, the performance on stage, and the overall impression on the jurors. While the return of juries increased the quality control, in recent years its power has been questioned, especially with the latter criteria. Most recently, they have shown to reward pop-oriented songs such as with Loreen’s “Tattoo” more than more experimental tracks such as “Eaea”. However, “The Code”, with its switches from drum-and-bass to rap to opera, received the highest jury score in history, including 22 sets of top scores. It showcases the juries’ receptiveness towards multi-genre mélanges, though “Zjerm”, which represented Albania in the 2025 contest, only got 48 points from them and was blanked by 27 countries’ juries. A Rest of the World jury would take into account blind spots and biases the Europe-based juries have, especially with more folk-based entries and songs of non-traditional genres.
A Rest of the World Jury could also help with another known problem with juries: a concentration of singers who have participated in Eurovision before. Recent contestants which returned for jury duty include Jesper Groth (of Fyr og Flamme) for Denmark, Diljá for Iceland, and Lea Sirk for Slovenia in 2024; and Melovin for Ukraine, Ott Lepland for Estonia, and Simone Dow (of Voyager) for Australia this year. It makes for a full circle moment for the contestants and songwriters, through it could also result in a feedback loop. Because of their status as part of the “Rest of the World”, an outside jury dedicated to songs allows a certain distance from what a “Eurovision song” is supposed to be, allowing for more surprising results. In addition, it could lead the way to more jury members within each participating country’s group, because the Rest of the World would have to represent more countries and therefore, more ideas of a song fulfilling the jury requirements. With more opinions from across the music world, the juries would better account for what makes a good song, rather than a song suitable for the Eurovision stage.
Finally, a ROTW jury would allow for higher engagement with the contest, and clarify the jury’s reputation with how the public sees them. From a distance, a jury deciding half the result represents an imbalance of power, with five people influencing or even nullifying the combined vote of millions of votes. With the last three winners being decided by the jury, higher profile jury members would not only provide more hype in terms of the contest, but also offer clarity on what juries would like to see from a winning entry. Jury members are only announced in May; if higher-profile names from around the globe volunteer (or get voted on, like those on the Ukrainian jury), then further interest would increase juror experience and the numbers involved. Therefore, the general public would trust the juries more to do a better job on deciding the best song.
Admittedly, the Rest of the World vote would still have their biases. Israel, Albania, and Ukraine have currently benefited the most from expanding the televote to the rest of the world, and global diasporas would garner enthusiasm for a song representing a country sung by someone amongst them. The 24-hour window before the contest wouldn’t allow for staging to be taken to account amongst the finalists, and have infrequently resulted in fans voting for the country, rather than the song and/or performance. However, it has added another perspective in the voting; in the first year of the ROTW, two of Spain’s five televoting points in the final came from the rest of the world. They also gave “Bur man laimi” ten points in the second semi-final of the 2025 contest.
Eurovision prides itself on sharing music from different parts of Europe, and having a Rest of the World televote allows the public outside of Europe to have their say on who the winner is. Why shouldn’t there be the same with the juries, who should have more clout on what they consider “the best song”?