Malta Eurovision 2017: Jury scrapped, no change to winning song

The Maltese public will get full say on the winner of the next Malta Eurovision Song Contest, with the jury panel scrapped entirely.

People will be able to vote for one song from every phone number.

Also, unlike Ira Losco last year, the winner of the contest will no longer be able to change his or winning song after the contest.

The new rules was announced by PBS chief executive John Bundy during a meeting with the 16 finalists for next year’s competition.

“The public will decide who it wants to represent us in Ukraine in May,” Bundy said. “We are asking the singers to concentrate on the song, the voice and the sound of the song and forget what is happening behind them. The 16 singers will all be treated equally. These are all winning songs and that is why they need to all be treated the same. We have therefore created a special schedule for the equal promotion of every singer.”

In recent years, the televote only accounted for one-sixth of the overall vote, with the five remaining jury members making up the remaining five-sixths of the vote.

Ira Losco and Amber had proved favourites with both the public and the jury in the past two years. However, in 2014 the televote winner was Jessika’s “Hypnotica” but the jury favourite and overall winner was Firelight’s “Coming Home”. In 2013, the audience favoured Kevin Borg’s ballad “Needing You”, but the overall winner was Gianluca’s “Tomorrow”.

The Malta Eurovision Song Contest will be held on 18 February, and the winner will represent the country in May’s Eurovision in Kiev, following Ukraine’s victory at the 2016 contest.