Eurovision Song Contest 2025 - Mod warning in the OP

Pyro mishap for Erika! 😮

https://twitter.com/eurovisionkat/status/1923169172088926597?s=46

There is an audience poll coming late tonight based on this evening's dress rehearsal. It will be intriguing to see in what order people in the actual audience rank the big favourites to win.

This is a former prison in Vilnius (some of Stranger Things was shot here) where they were having a Eurovision watch party last night, and will do the same on Saturday..

We (& the U.K.) will never have the level of pride/interest in Eurovision than the vast majority of countries that enter have, and that will never change.

The Eurovision does not have 2 billion viewers.

Listened back to BBC Radio 2’s commentary of both semi-finals from Richie Anderson and Sara Cox (Rylan and Scott Mills cover the final).

They were very funny and worked well together (Anderson usually commentates solo). Didn’t have high hopes initially for Cox, but she was good - taking the mickey out of the contest, but not being too snarky. Falling just the right side of not punching down.

Speaking of radio, did RTE have any live commentary? Usually, it is Shay Byrne and Zbyszek Zalinski.

The tv chef was previously part of a boyband, and was shuffled around a few other gigs before he landed where he did and is shoved in our faces 24/7. He is one of the chosen ones, see also Loui, Linda, the DWTS crowd, Tubridy, Kathryn Thomas, Baz etc. Expect to continue to see them at the opening of envelopes on tv/radio/vr/whatever til 2050 at least.

Finland seemingly very good in Jury show...odds look to have improved up to 4th favourite.

My top 5 bet looking decent!

Looking forward to seeing these countries again tomorrow night (in no particular order)…

Sweden, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Malta and San Marino (HEY!!) 🙂

The voting system is clearly not fit for purpose, it's literally impossible for Ireland ever to get through a semi, even if Freddy Mercury, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion , Whitney Houston, and Elvis formed a band to represent us, you'd still not get enough votes. Ireland is the rainy edge of Europe, no one is going to vote for Ireland, while every other country has close ties with rest of mainland europe, can't compete with all those millions of people

Count in the 2 semis and all the views each country get on YouTube etc and the figures climb. Thousands are still watching Israel's 2024 entry online daily.

I honestly didn't pick the figure out of my arse, some fella mentioned it on Pat Kenny's Newstalk. How many people are reached.

Anybody else get the feeling that there’s going to be a few surprises tomorrow night?

That the victory might not come so easy as expected for Sweden?

Also why would we send a person who doesn't look and sound Irish? That girl may be Irish according to Irish citizenship (whatever that counts for these days), but she's hardly fully Irish. I'm sick of the woke mind virus permeating everything and anything.

Why would other countries vote for an Irish entry sung by someone else? It would be like a German entry being sung by Johnny Logan if he had recently started living in the country and become a citizen there. It just doesn't fit. Samantha Mumba was born in Ireland, had an Irish accent, and would have been a far better choice and been fine as far as I'm concerned despite her African roots.

The voting may make it harder for the Irish entry to do well, but that doesn't mean it's all bollocks. Ireland aren't producing Niamh Kavanaghs and Enyas and Johnny Logans and Linda Martins and they're just getting destroyed by the voting system so that's why we never hear of them again - give your own ear a little more credit than that please.

We came sixth last year - I wonder how many people writing lengthy passionate speeches about it claiming things like we can never get through the semi-finals know that? Mustn't be any when they say we can't get through the semis.