RTVE Requests Eurovision to Reconsider Televoting After It Favours Israel

RTVE has announced its intention to request the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to open a debate on televoting to assess whether this method is the "most suitable" for determining the winner of the contest. This announcement was made during the Telediario-1 on Sunday, where it was stated that other European members have also joined the request after the Israeli candidate, Yuval Raphael, received the highest score in this system (297) of popular voting while receiving only 60 points from the professional jury. This resulted in her finishing in second place behind Austria, who won in the final moments of the voting.

Despite the public broadcaster expressing its opposition to the presence of the Hebrew candidacy due to the massacre in Gaza - Raphael is a survivor of the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023 - and challenging the EBU by broadcasting a message just before the contest calling for "peace and justice" for Palestine, the Spanish public also voted overwhelmingly for the representative of the Hebrew country. This led Amichai Chikli, Minister of the Diaspora and against antisemitism in the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, to address President Pedro Sánchez through social media. "Sánchez, it seems the Spaniards have spoken, and the slap was heard here in Jerusalem."

RTVE argues that in recent years, the televoting system has been affected by "armed conflicts," particularly in Gaza and Ukraine, causing the European contest to "lose its cultural essence." The Spanish delegation also requested Eurovision's organisation to disclose "how many votes each country received in Spain," a responsibility solely of the EBU. RTVE recalled, citing journalistic reports, that Netanyahu's government boasted of investing money last year - with the repression in Gaza already underway - to increase televoting and thus benefit its representative at the time, Eden Golan.

The Eurovision voting system has a dual structure: the professional jury vote from each country, which accounts for 50% of the score and is announced by each spokesperson during the final (the famous '12 points'). The other half of the final result is decided by the public through televoting. This can be done via the traditional format of phone calls or SMS messages, but also through the official website or app, with a maximum of 20 votes per credit card payment. Additionally, in recent years, voting is also possible via the web from countries not participating in the festival.

In this edition, Israel once again dominated the Eurovision televote. Yuval Raphael secured the second position in the European festival with a total of 357 points: she was the favourite in the public vote (297 votes) and received only 60 from the professional jury, allowing her to climb from 15th to second place in the final ranking, challenging Austria, the night's big winner with singer JJ. Raphael also triumphed in the voting from what Eurovision calls 'the rest of the world'.