Kati Bellowitsch presenting the Austrian votes in 2014
A spokesperson is a representative of a participating country's broadcaster, tasked in announcing the voting results from their respective countries. Each spokesperson would be contacted by phone (or via video conferencing since 1994) from the host country, one at a time. Spokespersons are only allowed to reveal their scores in English or French, as they are the official languages of the EBU.
Many broadcasters typically appoint past participants, presenters or other television personalities for such a role.
History[]
During early years of the contest, spokespersons were not permitted to listen in to the results from other countries, to prevent strategic changes to the scores at the eleventh hour.
There have been several variations on the order in which the points are revealed:
- 1957 to 1961, 1963, 1967 to 1970, and 1974 to 1979: The order follows the running order of the show, which means that the first country in the running order that received points would be announced first.
- 1962: Points are revealed in descending order.
- 1964 to 1966, 1980 to 2005: Points are revealed in ascending order.
- 2006 to 2015: Only the 8, 10 and 12 points are revealed. Others automatically added on the scoreboard.
- Since 2016: Only the 12 points is revealed.
There were no spokespersons involved in 1956 (as points were not revealed), as well as between 1971 and 1973 where the jury revealed their scores on stage.
The voting segment has been reduced since 2006, where it displays 1-7 points on the scoreboard, before the spokesperson announced the 8, 10 and 12 points. This was further cut down since the revamped voting system in 2016, with the spokespersons only announcing the 12 points from their national jury.
Running Order[]
Up until 2010, the running order for which the spokespersons reveal their scores were determined by a draw conducted alongside the Running Order Draw for the finalists. Since 2011 they were determined via an algorithm based on the jury votes that had been submitted following the Jury Final (held one day before the actual Final).
Since 2016, the jury voting results has been presented starting with the previous year's host country and ending with the current host country, but the algorithm persists for the other participating countries.
The only exceptions were 2023 and 2024. In 2023, the voting started with the previous year's winner (Ukraine), followed by the previous year's host (Italy), and ending with the current year's host (United Kingdom). In 2024, the voting started with Ukraine followed by United Kingdom as the joint hosts of the previous year. However, the voting ended in the traditional way with the current year's host (Sweden).
Contingencies[]
Contingencies are known to be deliberately placed during dress rehearsals in order to better prepare for the Final. Common errors include spokespersons skipping or calling out the incorrect results.
The spokesperson are expected to announce their points clearly. The presenter(s) may request the spokesperson to repeat their score if they are unable to hear the latter (for reasons not limiting to intermittent audio from the spokesperson, crowd cheering etc.). If a spokesperson does not follow the correct sequence in revealing the scores, they will be requested to re-correct their sequence, or start over.
Should a spokesperson lose contact with the host country, the presenters would announce that they would return to the affected country(ies) once all other countries have presented their scores, as in the case of the 1993 contest where contact with the spokesperson in Malta was lost and the 2015 contest where three countries lost contact during the voting segment. If the countries are still unable to be contacted towards the end, the Executive Supervisor would then reveal the scores on behalf of the country(ies) as was the case with Azerbaijan, Romania and Georgia in the 2022 final and the Netherlands in the 2024 final. However in early years of the contest, such a scenario would render the country's results null and void.