United by Music

Noam Bettan from Israel won the televote in the first semi-final of Eurovision 2026. (photo: Alma Bengtsson/EBU) I’ve already talked about the juries, so it’s time to discuss the remainder of the result of this year’s first semi-final. The results of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest were decided by a combination of national juries in each participating country and public televoting. It is always advertised as a 50/50 split, yet this isn’t quite the case any more. Since 2023, viewers watching from non-participating countries have been able to vote in the contest as part of an aggregated ‘Rest of the World’ televote. This is given the same weight as one participating country, but there is no ‘Rest of the World’ jury. Without any further ado, let’s dive into the numbers! The first thing to notice here is that two eventual non-qualifiers actually made it into the top ten with the televote, and therefore would have qualified for the final under the system used from 2023-2025, w...

Alicja from Poland won the jury vote in this year's first semi-final. (photo: Sarah Louise Bennett/EBU) When national juries were reintroduced to Eurovision in 2009, their influence was largely restricted to the Grand Final, with their only job in the semi-finals being to select a ‘wildcard’ qualifier from the countries that did not finish within the televote’s top nine. The main result of this was that North Macedonia failed to qualify for the final for two consecutive years, despite finishing tenth with the European public on both occasions. In 2010, this method of calculating the results was scrapped in favour of the 50/50 system, which remained in place until 2023, when the juries were removed from the semi-finals once again following the previous year’s collusion scandal. Between 2023 and 2025, the qualifiers were decided solely by the televote – something that I and many others in the Eurovision fandom community were not happy about. So it’s fair to say that I was quite p...

On the day of this year’s Eurovision Grand Final, I wrote that I was approaching the show with “a certain level of dread”. The tension surrounding Israel’s continued participation in the contest, and the distinct possibility of an Israeli victory, was becoming almost too much to bear – I felt like there was a non-zero chance of this being the last Eurovision Song Contest. However, the competition I love lives on, and will see (at least) one more year. Eurovision has produced its most surprising winner in recent memory, but also one of its best. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the riot. Dara won this year's Eurovision Song Contest for Bulgaria. (photo: Corinne Cumming/EBU) It’s been two months since Eurovision 2026 concluded in Vienna, and there is a lot to discuss. In this post, I’ll be recapping everything that went down during the semi-finals and the final itself, and sharing some of my personal highlights of the week. Like last year, I’m planning to do a more detailed anal...

Before you read this post about Eurovision 2026, I encourage you to have a look at my statement on this year’s contest. Well, two shows down and it’s suddenly time for this year’s Grand Final. Before I discuss the competing songs and my predictions for each of them, let’s take a moment to reflect on what happened on Thursday. In my opinion, the production of the show was better than Tuesday’s, though still not great. Michael and Victoria still seem uncomfortable, and the “Wasted Boat” opening act was very awkward. They managed to make “I’m So Excited” distinctly unexciting, and the blatant lip-synching annoyed me a bit. However, I did enjoy JJ’s new single, and am glad to see him continuing to have success after Eurovision. Let’s not forget, though, the sketch that was apparently so tone-deaf that the BBC cut away entirely and just played Look Mum No Computer’s music video instead. Speaking of the BBC, I must say I wasn’t convinced by Rylan and Angela during either of the semi-final...