Photo credit: Ortal Ziv Dahan
Season 13 of “HaKokhav HaBa” premieres tonight, kicking off Israel’s selection process for Eurovision 2027 with a new Eurovision-style jury voting system.
Eurovision 2027: The journey to select the Israeli entry for the contest officially begins tonight. Season 13 of “HaKokhav HaBa” (in English: “The Next Star”) ahead of Eurovision 2027 launches tonight at 20:30 CET (21:30 Israel time), with the premiere episode of the reality competition that will determine who will represent Israel at the upcoming contest airing immediately after the evening news broadcast. Filming for the season began about two months ago, with the audition rounds set to air over the coming weeks. The show will broadcast on Keshet 12 and 12+.
The Hosts, Judges, and New Format
Assi Azar and Rotem Sela will return to host Season 13 of the show, which is expected to conclude between late January and early February. They will be joined by judges Assaf Amdursky, Shiri Maimon, Keren Peles, Itay Levy, and Osher Cohen – all of whom served on the judging panel last season except for newcomer Osher Cohen, who will replace Eden Hason.
The upcoming season of “HaKokhav HaBa” will feature a significant change to the voting system. Instead of voting “blue” for a favored performance or “red” for a less favored one, the judges will award scores using the system associated with the Eurovision Song Contest itself – ranging from 4 to 12 points (“douze points”). The signature rising screen remains, and contestants will need to reach 70 percent to lift it.
The change is expected to create a new dynamic among the judges and heighten the tension from the very first moments of the season, alongside a wider range of scores and a greater challenge to achieve a top mark. Audience voting will remain a “pass/fail” system, with the overall weighting staying at 60% judges and 40% audience.
Continued Run for “HaKokhav HaBa La’Eurovizion”
“HaKokhav HaBa La’Eurovizion” returns to television after the Israeli national broadcaster Kan and commercial franchisee Keshet reached an agreement to extend their collaboration. This will mark the tenth time the two organizations partner to select the Israeli entry for Eurovision. The decision to continue the joint format follows the results achieved by Eden Golan, Yuval Raphael, and Noam Bettan – Israel’s entrants for Eurovision 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively – who finished at the top of the contest’s scoreboard.
Bettan, who won last season, finished in second place at Eurovision 2026 with the song “Michelle“. Raphael, who won the 2025 season of “HaKokhav HaBa”, also placed second in the Eurovision 2025 results and finished first in the public vote. Golan, who won the 2024 season, represented Israel at Eurovision 2024 during a year marked by significant challenges.
Since the collaboration between Kan and Keshet began in 2015, every Israeli act selected through the program has qualified for the Eurovision Grand Final. Among those results is Netta‘s victory in 2018 with the song “Toy”, which brought the contest back to Israel.
The decision by the Israeli national broadcaster Kan to continue partnering with Keshet is also driven by financial considerations. Through the collaboration, Kan reduces the substantial costs associated with contest preparations – including music video production, delegation travel and security, and stage production. These savings allow Kan to allocate additional resources toward creating new original programming on Kan 11 unrelated to Eurovision.
The promotional trailer for the new season frames the updated format as a “revolution” while introducing new judge Osher Cohen. In the clip, the judges react to the new scoring with remarks such as “What is this madness?” and “This new system is tough”, alongside selected audition highlights and the caption: “Europe, get ready for a revolution”.
הצגת פוסט זה באינסטגרם
Decline in Show Ratings Compared to Rise in Eurovision Viewership
In terms of television ratings, the 2026 season of “HaKokhav HaBa” was no longer the most-watched program in Israel, and placed fourth in the annual rating scoreboard with 17.6%.
In contrast, Eurovision viewership in Israel increased, with the Eurovision 2026 Grand Final drawing a 32.7% rating on Kan 11 – an average of 1,042,000 viewers throughout the evening. By comparison, the Eurovision 2025 Grand Final recorded a rating of approximately 32% in Israel, with around 939,000 to 993,000 television viewers, slightly lower than the 36.8% rating recorded for Eurovision 2024. Beyond television broadcasts in 2026, Kan also recorded an additional 1.3 million visits across its various digital platforms over the course of the evening.
מישל
Israelנועם בתן represented Israel at Eurovision 2026 with “מישל”. The entry finished 2nd in the grand final with 343 points.
Israel competed at Eurovision 48 times between 1973 and 2026. The country has won four times, most recently in 2018 with Netta Barzilai’s “Toy”. In 2026, נועם בתן represented Israel with “מישל”, finishing 2nd in the grand final with 343 points.
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Tal Dahan – Journalist, radio broadcaster, and Eurovision content creator.
Tal Dahan is an Israeli journalist and editor specializing in the Eurovision Song Contest, working with the EuroMix editorial team for four years. Since 2022, she has provided regular on-site coverage of Eurovision from the host city, and from 2023 has also reported directly from the press room—offering the Israeli audience live updates, exclusive interviews, and in-depth commentary.
Tal is a member of the Eurovision tribute and parody band “EuroFalsh,” a radio broadcaster, and a student of political science and communications.
She is considered one of Israel’s leading young Eurovision experts. In addition to covering the main contest, Tal has reported from Eurovision pre-parties and national selection events across Europe (in Thessaloniki, Stockholm, Madrid, and more), been interviewed by major media outlets in Israel and internationally, and presented Eurovision-themed podcasts and radio shows.
