The 2008 contest featured a new system for semi-final allocation in order to reduce the problems of neighborly and diaspora voting that occurred in years past.
Beginning in the 1980s, media companies began splitting shares into voting and nonvoting classifications and have come to be the dominant users of that strategy to centralise authority.
They remain politically neutral, do not seek public office, and are discouraged from voting, though individual members may participate in uncontroversial community improvement issues.
