Eurovision 2026: Post-Show Analysis

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 analysis of the results in a series of posts to follow over the course of the summer – so I won’t be drilling too deep into the numbers today, instead focussing on the shows, the artists and some of my thoughts as we head rapidly into another Eurovision season.

To begin, let’s talk about this year’s presenters. If you watched any of this year’s shows, it perhaps won’t come as a surprise to hear that I didn’t think much to Michael and Victoria this year. We’ve been spoilt in recent years as far as Eurovision presenters are concerned, with highly competent teams fronting shows in Liverpool, Malmö and Basel. Whilst some might argue that each line-up had its standout star, I don’t think many people would deny that they all functioned as a group in a way that Michael and Victoria never quite managed to. Watching them on stage in Vienna, one could have been forgiven for thinking they’d never met before, such was the lack of any semblance of a rapport between the pair. Victoria in particular was simply not good enough to host a show of the scale of Eurovision: she brought absolutely no personality to the role and generally looked bored throughout.

I’ve perhaps been a bit harsh there, so I will say that I don’t think Michael and Victoria were helped by the script given to them. The production team apparently decided to cast Michael as the ‘funny one’, and whilst he was certainly more amusing than Victoria, the role didn’t seem to come as naturally to him as it did to Hazel last year, meaning that most of the jokes fell a bit flat. The many costume changes got boring after a while as well – I don’t know what effect dressing Michael as Freddie Mercury was supposed to have on the audience, but the whole thing just didn’t work. The running gag of naming previous Eurovision winners was a clever idea (if not particularly innovative) and might have worked better had Michael and Victoria been able to bounce off each other and make it feel a bit more natural than it did.

The last thing I’ll say on the topic of presenters is that I thought Emily Busvine did a very good job of hosting the green room. Having a dedicated green room host isn’t something we’ve seen at Eurovision for a few years now, so it was nice to see that brought back. I think it was definitely necessary given that we only had two main presenters, and particularly helpful as Michael and Victoria hosted the voting together in the grand final.

This year’s shows left a lot to be desired in other ways as well, most notably in the opening and interval acts. I said this during Eurovision week, but I’d be quite happy to implement a blanket ban on previous Eurovision contestants coming back to take part in random medleys. Let the reigning champion have their moment, but everybody else can stay away from the stage as far as I’m concerned – particularly those that didn’t qualify for the final in the first place (looking at nobody in particular…)! Things I did enjoy, however, included the acrobatic performance in the first semi-final, JJ’s performances of his new song “Unknown” and Cesár Sampson performing “Vienna”.

With all that being said, I think it’s time to have a look at some of the main talking points from this year’s results.

Firstly, the main success story of Eurovision 2026 was indisputably Dara from Bulgaria. She took the trophy with 516 points, winning both the jury vote and the televote in the process (becoming the first artist to do so since Salvador Sobral in 2017) and garnering the greatest lead (in absolute terms) over second place ever seen at Eurovision. This really came out of nowhere – if you had told anyone in the Eurovision community during the build-up to this year’s contest that “Bangaranga” would be the winning song, I think they would have laughed in your face. I certainly would – I predicted on multiple occasions that Bulgaria would fail to make it out of the semi-final; a statement that I think may haunt me for a while.

The Bulgarian delegation played this very cleverly, choosing to release the climax of the performance as the rehearsal snippet, thus giving away as little as possible about the changes that had been made for the Eurovision stage. That meant that even in Eurovision week itself, I and many others were still completely unaware of what was coming. I’ll go into more detail in a later post, but I do think this ‘slow burn’ effect is visible in the results – “Bangaranga” was, for me, a song that took a bit of getting used to, with its slightly incohesive nature putting me off originally. I think a similar thing might have happened with this year’s jurors, as despite winning the jury vote in the final, it finished only fifth in its semi-final. Maybe some of this year’s music experts needed those extra two days to fully appreciate the merits of the package.

What really made this song work was the stage show. The creative genius Fredrik ‘Benke’ Rydman and his team managed to assess the vibe of the song with astonishing accuracy, and then somehow turn its chaos into a package that was both professional and visually arresting. It looked like nothing we’ve seen before at Eurovision: we as fans love to discuss the tropes and the songs that seem to come back year after year, but Dara’s performance didn’t fit into any box and wasn’t trying to replicate anything else. I think it’s fantastic that at a time when so many songs are crafted specifically to find a viral moment, Bulgaria has emerged victorious by just doing its own thing.

Bulgaria’s victory is significant for Eurovision in a number of ways. As I mentioned above, this is the first time in a number of years that the jury and public have agreed on a champion, removing the need for the endless discussion that inevitably comes when the people’s favourite is defeated. This was also Bulgaria’s first Eurovision victory, making the country the first ‘new’ winner since Portugal nine years ago. In addition, Dara is one of very few recent Eurovision winners to come from Eastern Europe. Aside from Ukraine, the most recent Eastern European country to win the contest was Russia all the way back in 2008.

Next year’s contest, to be held in either Burgas or Sofia, will mark Eurovision’s first trip to the Balkans since 2008 – I really hope this will mean a reimagining of what Eurovision could look like, and also a cheaper contest for some of the countries that have been struggling with the financial burden of participating in Eurovision (remember that Bulgaria was one of those until this year!). We have already had confirmation that North Macedonia will be returning to the contest after a four-year absence, so things are looking positive in that regard.

In this year more than any other, the EBU needed a winner like this. Dara’s victory was both convincing and uncontroversial, and the underdog nature of her trajectory really does make for a fantastic story. Had this year’s contest been closer, or had another jury favourite beaten the public’s choice, the discourse would likely have damaged the Eurovision brand even further and diverted attention away from the many other important issues to discuss.

Speaking of important issues, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Israel finished second at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, marking the second year in a row that the country has appeared on the final split screen and nearly taken the whole thing. However, I think the story this year is quite different to what happened in Basel. Noam Bettan scored 343 points, of which 123 came from the juries and 220 came from the televote. Focussing on the latter score first, I think it’s clear to see that, once again, this number of points is not particularly reflective of the quality of the song. Israel’s Eurovision entries continue to be a magnet for the support of those for whom showing solidarity with the country is politically convenient, and there are evidently still people voting for Israel despite having little to no interest in the contest itself.

But looking a little closer at this result, it seems like the measures put in place by the EBU to try and prevent manipulation of the televoting system may have been at least minorly effective. Israel’s televote score of 220 points (6.29 PPC) is significantly lower than its scores in 2025 (297 points; 8.03 PPC) and 2024 (323 points; 8.73 PPC), suggesting that the reduction to the voting cap and restrictions imposed on state-funded advertising may have been successful in their implicit aim of bringing Israel’s televote score down to a more realistic level. Israel was beaten in the televote this year by both Bulgaria and Romania, so clearly an excellent song and performance will still trump external interference.

More interesting, in my opinion, is Israel’s jury score. The country scored 123 points (3.62 PPC), finishing eighth with the music industry professionals and receiving the douze points from the Polish jury in the process. Over the last couple of years, with Israel’s participation in Eurovision becoming more and more contentious, much has been made of what has been perceived to be juries deliberately marking Israel down to prevent it from winning. This seemed to be the main factor behind Israel receiving just 52 points from the juries in 2024 (1.44 PPC) and 60 (1.67 PPC) in 2025.

But that wasn’t really the case this year. “Michelle” won a lot more jury support than both of its immediate predecessors, and I think that makes it all the more striking that its televote score was so much lower. The juries, supposedly the objective voice in Eurovision, deemed this year’s song to be the clear best of the three, and whilst we all know that the public doesn’t always agree with the experts, this does make me wonder if Israel’s ‘real’ televote score (i.e. the points Israel would have received without any external factors) would also have been higher. If this is the case, it would provide more evidence for the theory that the EBU’s voting reforms have been effective, at least in part, with more of Israel’s already lower televote score being accounted for naturally.

I think it also must be said that the nature of the results reveal made things seem a lot closer than they actually were. This was not an accident – Eurovision is, after all, a major televised spectacle and an exciting finish is normally desirable, so I can absolutely understand why the producers choose to put the last two potential winners next to each other on the screen – but for anybody not on top of the numbers, it created a lot of unnecessary anxiety. As I mentioned earlier, Bulgaria’s winning margin was the largest ever seen at Eurovision, so thanks to my trusty spreadsheet, I was well aware as we waited for Dara to receive her televote score that she was home and dry, but that dramatic pause and long wait was still slightly gut-wrenching.

Hopefully I’ve made it clear that I don’t think Israel’s result this year was entirely legitimate; but I think it has to be noted that the second-place finish wasn’t a particularly astonishing one, with the lowest score for any silver medallist since the introduction of the split voting system in 2016. Both this year and last year, the scores for the top songs have been much lower than we are used to (with “Bangaranga” being the only exception) and in a lot of other years, Israel’s score wouldn’t have been enough to even make it on to the podium. I’ll move on now, because I think I’m beginning to repeat myself, but I think I’ll be talking about this result again in the future.

Romania, another of this year’s returning countries, equalled its best-ever Eurovision result this year, finishing third with “Choke Me”. This was largely driven by huge support from the televote, with Alexandra Căpitănescu scoring 232 points and finishing behind only Dara. The juries were a bit more muted in their support, but gave the song enough points to make it competitive on the final scoreboard. It was lovely to see Romania finally being rewarded at Eurovision after a difficult few years, with the country’s first appearance in the final since 2022, and first top-ten finish since 2017. After a few years away, Romania seems to be here to stay (at least for the time being), having already confirmed its participation for 2027. Alexandra will be a difficult act to follow, but hopefully the country will go from strength to strength, and maybe even take its first Eurovision trophy in the next few years!

Hot on Romania’s heels was Delta Goodrem from Australia, with another package that gained a lot of traction during Eurovision week itself, when it became apparent that Delta is truly a world-class performer. Whilst “Eclipse” is by no means a bad song, I thought it ran the risk of being seen as a bit ‘ordinary’, particularly by the audience watching at home (and Australia doesn’t have a particularly good historical record when it comes to the televote), but Delta’s delivery really took it to another level, to the point where I genuinely thought she could have won, and wouldn’t have been upset if that had happened. After a couple of years which had made me doubt the country’s long-term commitment to Eurovision, Australia really did bring its A-game this year, and I for one will be upset if we go back to the likes of Go-Jo in 2027.

Fifth place went to Italy, with Sal Da Vinci continuing the country’s string of excellent Eurovision results in recent years. This is interesting to me, as I was a fan of the song before the contest, but wasn’t sure if it would be able to garner enough appeal with those outside its target demographic. I also really didn’t think the performance was helping, as the Italians rather overegged the pudding when it came to the staging and the vocal performance left a lot to be desired. For that reason, I was very surprised to see it doing so well with the juries, even taking the lead at an early stage! I’m sure the Italian language gave this a bit of a boost, as often seems to be the case. But the hypothesis that Italy is incapable of doing badly at Eurovision in the 2020s still remains to be disproven!

Next were pre-contest favourites Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, performing for Finland. I can’t overstate just how hotly tipped these two were to take the trophy – they won just about every fan poll in existence and seemed to be riding a wave of hype that just fed itself as we got closer to Vienna. After all that, sixth place will have felt very disappointing. “Liekinheitin” was one of my favourite songs this year, but I never properly understood why people were predicting that it would be a landslide winner, and by the time Eurovision rolled around, I had reached a point where I actively didn’t want Finland to win because I was just a little bit tired of people acting like it was the best song ever to grace the Eurovision stage. I will be interested to see where Finland goes from here. UMK has undoubtedly been one of the strongest national finals in recent years, and it does feel like it’s only a matter of time until it produces a Eurovision champion.

A small caveat to the above: whilst Linda and Pete did fail to crack the top five, they actually ended up within 20 points of Romania in third, so had a couple of countries voted differently, things could have looked very different. It really was very tight at the top this year!

Fellow Nordic nation Denmark ended up seventh, despite performing first in the running order. This makes Søren the highest-placing show opener since Mariya Yaremchuk finished sixth for Ukraine in 2014. I really grew to love this song and package over the course of the season, having not quite understood the hype before Dansk Melodi Grand Prix. Whilst I had accepted by Eurovision week that it probably wasn’t going to win, this result still feels like a huge victory for a country that until recently was struggling to even qualify. The songs in this year’s Danish national final were such an improvement compared to recent years, and I really hope that even if we don’t get another “Før vi går hjem”, Denmark builds on this momentum next year.

Moldova made an emphatic return to Eurovision this year, finishing eighth in the country’s first appearance in the final since 2023. As predicted, “Viva, Moldova!” scored the majority of its points from the televote, finishing fourth with 183 points, but his jury score of 43 points was more than many people (including myself) might have predicted. This was another package that just really worked on stage. Much like Zdob şi Zdub four years ago, Satoshi absolutely brought the house down with his performance, and all of the individual elements worked very well together. Having Aliona Moon on backing vocals was a particularly nice touch, and it somehow didn’t feel at all out of place among the chaos. It was so wonderful to see Eastern European countries getting their flowers this year, particularly those that have been absent from the contest in recent years, and I look forward to seeing what Eurovision’s pluckiest underdog will have for us in 2027.

Ukraine was next, ending up in ninth place in another result largely driven by televote support. Since Russia invaded the country in 2022, Ukraine’s entries have all performed very well with the viewing public, and this year was no exception, with Leléka scoring 167 points from the audience. I’ve said before that Ukraine’s televote support is very different to what we have seen from Israel, and I do stand by that, but ultimately this is another televote score that doesn’t reflect the quality of what we saw on stage – and that doesn’t fully sit right with me. It’s difficult for me to assess how “Ridnym” might have done had it been sent by another country, because I’m quite aware that my opinion of the song is lower than that of the Eurovision community as a whole, but I think it’s safe to say it would have been nowhere near the top ten. This is perhaps an unpopular opinion to hold, but Ukraine’s last two Eurovision entries have been massively overrated, both at the contest itself and by the fandom. When Ukraine gets Eurovision right, it really gets it right, and I hope we have a return to that next year.

The final place in the top ten went to another pre-contest favourite in Akylas from Greece. Despite many fans predicting a Käärijä or Baby Lasagna style televote result, “Ferto” only managed sixth place with the audience, scoring 147 points. The juries, as predicted, weren’t quite so supportive of Akylas’ chaos, but didn’t tank him entirely. This was another of this year’s packages that I never fully understood. Whilst the song did grow on me during the season, the hype always seemed a little bit manufactured, and the attempts to draw some kind of deep meaning from the package felt a bit disingenuous. Ultimately, I think Greece fell short this year because the song just wasn’t as immediate as previous wacky entries, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the style of the performance put off quite a few casual viewers.

And now we come to the country that I, for the second year in a row, predicted would win the Eurovision Song Contest. The French delegation must have been very disappointed indeed that “Regarde” didn’t come close to matching the success of previous opera-infused entries, and the televote score must have been particularly painful. Whilst it’s a real shame for Monroe, who is undoubtedly one of this year’s most talented vocalists, I do think that on the whole it’s a good thing for the contest that France didn’t win this year. After the last few years, Eurovision desperately needed a winner that reflected modern music trends a bit more accurately, and “Regarde” just wasn’t that. It’s reassuring that the juries saw that as well, and didn’t just go for what seemed to be a rather shameless attempt to grab votes. Besides, the trophy cabinet at the French broadcaster is probably full by now, with all those Junior Eurovision victories.

Right behind France, in twelfth place, was a country that I didn’t even think was going to qualify for the final. Alicja from Poland finally got her time to shine on the Eurovision stage, and proved her nay-sayers wrong in the best way possible. Earlier in the year, I said on this very blog that I thought “Pray” was frankly a bit of a mess and would be treated very harshly by the juries (particularly given Poland’s track record in this area). How wrong I turned out to be! Poland scored the vast majority of its points this year from the music experts, who rewarded Alicja’s powerful vocals and a brilliantly slick performance. This was, to me, potentially the glow-up of the year, and I think it deserved to finish where it did. It just goes to show, once again, that all that counts at Eurovision is what happens on the night.

Next is another one of my favourites of this year’s cohort: Albania’s “Nân”. Alis’ performance, so greatly enhanced by the use of English subtitles, brought me to tears in the semi-final, and I was so pleased to see the song end up on the left-hand side of the scoreboard in the end. As is often the case for Albania, the package scored the majority of its points from the televote, and was overlooked, rather unfairly in my view, by the juries. Norway’s Jonas Lovv had the opposite problem, with “Ya Ya Ya” ending up with a less than impressive score from the viewers at home. Jonas poured everything he had into his performance, despite being unwell, and really elevated the package – so it was nice to see that being recognised by the juries. I think Norway got off lightly this year though, and Melodi Grand Prix definitely needs a bit of a shake-up for 2027.

The wonderful voices and poignant symbolism of Lelek from Croatia earned them fifteenth place, with no shortage of support from its fellow ex-Yugoslav nations. I was, again, pleased that the artistry and vocals behind this performance were rewarded, even if the juries did seem to give it a somewhat lukewarm reception. Czechia came next, with Daniel Žižka earning a top ten finish with the juries but only nine points from the entire viewing public. Of course, the Czech performance in the final was disturbed by a camera fault, and I think the delegation was rightly aggrieved not to be offered another chance, but I’m not sure how much that will have impacted its televote performance. If I’m honest, I think “Crossroads” was just slightly too avant-garde for the mainstream viewer (and indeed myself) and wasn’t especially easy to latch onto after only one listen.

Almost the exact opposite of “Crossroads”, and just one place below it on the scoreboard, was Serbia’s “Kraj mene”. Lavina were fortunate in that there really was nothing else quite like this in this year’s contest, and particularly in their section of the running order, which was generally quite downbeat. Serbia did score more points from the televote than the juries this year, but the result was more even than I might have expected. Just one point behind them was Aidan from Malta, another artist I was very happy to see on the Eurovision stage after multiple failed attempts. “Bella” earned itself a typical Maltese result: a reasonably strong showing with the juries and next to nothing with the televote. Malta is going in the right direction at the moment as far as Eurovision is concerned, but will struggle to find something truly special if the national final remains as it is now.

After Antigoni’s semi-final performance for Cyprus, I completely wrote her off. Despite the song being in my personal top ten, I thought there was no way the juries would allow a vocal performance of that quality through to the final. Again, how wrong I was! Mercifully, Antigoni sounded a bit better on the Saturday night, and I would say more or less ended up in the right place on the scoreboard, but the fact that “Jalla” scored more points with the juries than the public still astonishes me.

I have already mentioned several countries that I think will be disappointed with how their entries performed at Eurovision this year, but none would fit that description more aptly than Sweden. Felicia ended up twentieth with “My System”, the country’s worst result since it failed to qualify in 2010. For a country that is used to comfortable top ten finishes, and a solid haul of points from the juries, this will have been a rather unfamiliar feeling. Felicia therefore becomes the latest victim of Eurovision’s ‘EDM curse’ – the genre just doesn’t seem to work at the contest for some reason. In all honesty, I think it’s just quite difficult to stage, and whilst “My System” looked fabulous at Melfest, the downgrade for the Eurovision stage was more pronounced than it has been in other years (not least due to the smaller dance troupe). Many in the Eurovision community online seem to think that Melfest is past its prime, and I don’t think I’d be quite that dramatic, but this definitely wasn’t a peak year. Hopefully it will come back stronger next year and return Sweden to more familiar territory!

Belgium was another of this year’s surprise qualifiers. Sometimes at Eurovision, I’m upset when a particular song doesn’t qualify, but I’m rarely too put out when an unexpected contender makes it through. “Dancing on the Ice” was the exception to that rule, and I still don’t really understand why the juries voted for it as much as they did. In my opinion, the song, vocals and choreography were all subpar. Douze points from the Italian jury was particularly strange. The televote gave this song a grand total of nothing, and I can’t say I feel too sorry for Essyla, as harsh as that might sound.

I never really clicked with Lithuania’s entry this year. I think it was a little bit like “Crossroads” in that it was just a little bit too ‘arty’ for my liking, but I unfortunately found less to like about this package. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been particularly upset had Lion Ceccah failed to qualify for the final. This result is Lithuania’s worst of the 2020s so far, and the televote score in particular is very interesting to me. “Sólo quiero más” scored just 12 points from the audience, all of which came from neighbouring Latvia. Every other country, including the United Kingdom (where the Lithuanian diaspora normally turn out in support of their homeland), gave it nothing. Much like Poland’s disappointing public reception, well-established voting patterns seem to have been turned on their heads this year.

After a couple of uncharacteristically good results, Germany returned to its usual ways this year, finishing third from the bottom. “Fire” was given the dreaded number two slot in the running order, and this year that proved to be a bit of a curse, as Sarah Engels also received nul points from the televote. Germany did, however, give neighbouring Austria its only televote points of the year. The host country ended up in a disappointing second-to-last with “Tanzschein”, scoring a total of just six points. Cosmó did, however, provide a perfect ending to the show, and really fired up the home crowd. After a few very strong host entries, this was a return to the ordinary; a host country focussed on delivering three excellent shows and treating their own song as a bit of an afterthought. Whether Austria actually managed to deliver three excellent shows is very much up for discussion.

And finally, this year’s wooden spoon went to the United Kingdom. We scored just 1 point this year, which came from the Ukrainian jury – a result that is undeniably disappointing, if not entirely surprising. From the start, we knew that the BBC was taking a bit of a risk by choosing Look Mum No Computer, and unfortunately that risk didn’t pay off. It’s easy to feel aggrieved, particularly as other countries have done very well with their own sillier entries, but I had to ask myself on the night if I would have voted for “Eins, Zwei, Drei” had it been another country’s entry, or had I been living abroad? And the answer was no. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t work on stage. Max had an excellent attitude to all things Eurovision, but the standard of his performance wasn’t as high as I would expect either. I am planning to discuss in more detail where the UK should go from here in another post, because I have a lot of thoughts and I don’t want this to be too much longer than it already is!

But those results don’t tell the full story of Eurovision 2026. Ten of this year’s songs fell before we even reached the final, and it’s only fair that I discuss them as well.

Just missing out in the first semi-final was Estonia’s Vanilla Ninja. I have a complicated and well-documented relationship with their entry “Too Epic to Be True” – its selection for Eurovision annoyed me more than any other song this year (and I do still believe that there were superior options in the Estonian national final) but it grew on me throughout the season, helped by a revamp, and by the time we reached Eurovision week, I thought it was going to qualify and frankly, that wouldn’t have upset me. Estonia would have qualified in ninth place under last year’s televote-only system, but a disappointing jury score meant an early flight home in the end.

Portugal had been on a roll in Eurovision this decade, qualifying for five consecutive finals and providing the sleeper hit of last year’s contest. Unfortunately, the country’s luck ran out this year with the Bandidos do Cante ending up twelfth in the semi-final. It’s a shame as I did appreciate this year’s Portuguese entry, but ultimately I think “Rosa” must have been just a bit too quiet to make an impact. One song that certainly wasn’t too quiet was “Nova zora” from Montenegro, which ended up thirteenth. This song was a real fan favourite, and many (including myself) hoped that it could take the country to the final for the first time since 2015. Unfortunately, that didn’t come to pass, and I did get that prediction right in the end, but the most disappointing part of the whole thing is that Montenegro, like Estonia, would have qualified had only the audience’s votes been counted. Last year’s Montesong had several credible options, and I really hope that the Montenegrin broadcaster decides to come back to Eurovision next year to build on that.

San Marino also failed to qualify, returning to business as usual after last year’s success (calling last place in the final a success is a bit strange but there we are). Senhit, as she always does, delivered her song excellently, and I did prefer it live to in the studio, but ultimately I think “Superstar” just wasn’t good enough to begin with. The presence of Boy George was just a little bit odd – as a gimmick it seemed to generate more negative publicity than positive, and he didn’t really seem to have much to do in the performance. A bit of a misfire I think. And then bringing up the rear, with a rather dismal combined score of 5 points, was Georgia, with Bzikebi failing to replicate their Junior Eurovision success in quite a dramatic fashion. Whilst I quite enjoy “On Replay” as a song, I have to admit that the package just didn’t match up to everything else on offer. The performance didn’t do enough to fill the arena, and unfortunately it was painfully obvious that only one member of the group still works as a musician.

In the second semi-final, Switzerland had the misfortune of not qualifying despite finishing in the top ten with both the juries and the televote. This was only the second time this has happened at Eurovision, after the famous Albina incident of 2021. “Alice” finished in ninth place with both sides of the vote, but differences of opinion elsewhere (namely the jury’s support for Czechia and the televote’s support for Albania) pushed the song down into eleventh. It’s a real shame – the package would have made an excellent addition to this year’s final, and of course would have qualified under last year’s system (although I don’t think I would have been happy to see Czechia miss out either).

Luxembourg ended up twelfth in this semi-final (though quite a few points behind Switzerland), marking the country’s first non-qualification since it returned to Eurovision in 2024. “Mother Nature” surprised me by performing better with the televote than with the juries, but sadly it wasn’t enough. Which is a shame, but equally I don’t think it was a great travesty of justice. Speaking of which, I’m discussing my personal favourite of this year’s contest much too far into this post, as Atvara from Latvia not only failed to qualify, but finished a frankly insulting thirteenth out of fifteen in the semi-final. I really think “Ēnā” could have benefitted greatly from an English translation on screen, just as Albania did, because the lyrics of the song are just so meaningful but the message was sadly lost in translation. But the fact that the national juries, who supposedly did have a translation of the lyrics when they were watching the show, gave the song only 28 points really annoys me.

This was not a good year for the countries of the Caucasus. I’ve already discussed Georgia’s disappointing result in the other semi-final, and the only two countries that remain for me to speak about are Armenia and Azerbaijan, appearing in the same semi-final for the first time since 2019. Armenia actually finished with the same number of points as Latvia, but lost on the tie-break due to receiving a lower score from the televote. I didn’t expect it to be the juries that went for “Paloma Rumba”, but that’s the beauty of Eurovision. And Azerbaijan notched up its fourth consecutive non-qualification this year, and second consecutive wooden spoon, with Jiva scoring just 2 points from the Bulgarian jury and nul from the televote. I struggle to know what to say about this to be honest, because Azerbaijan has either completely lost interest in Eurovision, or just doesn’t know what works in the modern contest. One thing I will say is that I do think it’s very unfortunate that the reversal in Azerbaijan’s fortunes has coincided with the country’s push to select more local talent for Eurovision, and I hope that this method does bring some better results soon.

To conclude, then, where has this year’s competition left Eurovision? Some would say the contest stands on very shaky ground, and I can’t say I disagree to be honest. Vienna certainly answered a few questions, but it raised several others. Dara’s unexpected success, along with good results for Romania and Moldova, was probably the saving grace of Eurovision 2026. Whether it will be enough to convince the five countries that boycotted this year will remain to be seen – to be honest, I have my doubts. If anything, it seems like the list might get longer, with Belgian broadcaster VRT strongly considering stepping away from Eurovision.

Whatever happens, I am very excited to see how Bulgaria takes on hosting duties, and to witness a contest held outside of Western Europe for the first time in a long while. I hope it feels like a breath of fresh air, and that the identity of the broadcaster and country is allowed to shine through. One thing I dislike about the modern contest is how similar every year feels. Watching Eurovision from years gone by, it’s staggering to see just how much changed depending on which broadcaster was in charge, and I think it’s a shame that we’ve lost that over time.

Finally, let me return to the anecdote I shared right at the beginning of this post:

On the day of the final, I think I made it clear over on Bluesky that the possibility of an Israeli victory had been stressing me out to the point that I chose to stay off my phone during the show and decided not to share my live reactions as I had done for the semi-finals. After the results, I posted a short statement that I will share once again here. Israel cannot be allowed to continue abusing the Eurovision Song Contest in this way. Without major change, it is clear that continuing as we are will sooner or later mean the end of Eurovision. We must continue holding the EBU to account. Broadcasters must actively campaign for Israel’s removal AND a major televote overhaul, not one or the other. We can’t do this every year.

Even though voting reforms may have mitigated the situation somewhat, we have seen time and time again that Israel’s presence has brought the Eurovision Song Contest into disrepute. One only needs to look at the viewing figures for this year’s contest compared to 2023, or indeed the streaming figures for this year’s songs, to see that once-loyal fans are abandoning Eurovision in large numbers. The wonderful Eurovision community, built on love over so many years, feels more divided than ever. Whether Eurovision will ever feel like it used to is uncertain. But unless clear steps are taken to resolve some of the issues of the last three years, I fear the spirit of the contest I love might be gone forever.

And I should probably mention it: Canada is joining the party next year. More thoughts on that to follow at a later date.