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It said the new "Rest of the World" vote was to
strengthen the audience's power to influence the results and to
recognise the global reach of the competition, which last year
drew a television audience of more than 160 million.
Viewers will be able to vote via a secure online platform, and a
full list of eligible countries will be published nearer the
time of the event, usually held in May.
"Votes from countries not participating will be combined to
create a set of points with the same weight as one participating
country in both of the Semi-Finals and the Grand Final," the
contest's organisers said on their website.
The 2023 Eurovision Song Contest will be held in the northern
English city of Liverpool on behalf of this year's winners
Ukraine.
Decades-long tradition usually dictates that the winner of the
contest gets to host it the following year, but the European
Broadcasting Union (EBU) said safety and security reasons due to
the ongoing conflict there meant runners-up the United Kingdom
would host it instead.
The contest's organisers said they were also making changes to
the voting system for the semi-finals, which would now be
decided by viewers alone rather than a combination of votes from
viewers and national juries of musical experts as previously.
The grand final results will still be decided by a combination
of votes by viewers and juries.
It said the changes were designed to protect the event's
integrity after irregular voting patterns in the results of six
countries in the 2022 contest.
(Reporting by Farouq Suleiman, Editing by Louise Heavens)
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