Eurovision Song Contest 2026

Deserved better on the night, perhaps, but it was right it didn't win. Gina G was very off vocally, and in what would be the final year of 100% jury vote, she didn't stand a chance. She also had the misfortune of performing second in the running order too, though back then, the juries voted for each song immediately after it had been sung, so perhaps she wasn't as damaged as that as by a bad vocal.

There's a lot of fans who insist, 30 years on, that had the televote come a few years earlier, she'd have stormed to victory. I doubt that, because singing second with a televote, she'd have been long forgotten by the time the lines opened.

In a way it was a shame she sang so poorly, and so early. The 1996 contest was full of ballads and New Age sounds, and the running order was dreadful - it's a real slog to get though songs 20 to 22, and I think that's what cost Sweden the win that year…most juries had tuned out by song 23.

I saw many people on social media saying they found the voting sequence at the end very stressful and quite a few feared that Israel had won. As you say, this cannot be allowed to continue…..Israel (or their supporters) hijacking the televote sequence year in, year out (with songs that are not winner material) is unprecedented and damaging the Contest.

Problem with this split screen thing is that it's probably going to go pear shaped soon enough and we'll discover they actually have won the Contest. I wouldn't be assuming for a moment that their results will get worse from now on.

Everyone is so relieved about the result that I've only just realised that Bulgaria is the winner we've been waiting for for a long time…a song pretty close to what's happening in real-world music, a landslide winner, jury and televote agreement that it was the best song (last happened in 2017), and a winner that came almost from nowhere. Last Monday morning, no one was talking about Bulgaria as a winner.

I don't understand this story:

https://eurovoix.com/2026/05/17/moldova-trm-issues-statement-eurovision-voting/

Surely it's a GOOD thing if a jury votes (or doesn't vote in this case) for a song based on its merits alone and doesn't take things like neighbours into consideration?

I think it might be the best winner since Maneskin (or Duncan Laurence). The staging really elevated it and Dara is a fantastic performer - it's a rare event for a contemporary dance / EDM track to win over the juries and top their ranking.

Yeah there is an argument to be had there, but where does it put them for next year? The audience numbers for the this week will be very week, considering that TLLS finished up early also. I suppose this year they have the WC so they don't really have to worry to much.

Personally, I think Wasted Love was the weakest song to win this decade. Of course, it didn't really matter, as long as it kept that country off the top spot. But it's great that we have both a strong winning song AND it stopped that country winning.

Belgium's VRT (for the Dutch-speaking part of the country) has already said it's unlikely to send a song next year. This year's Belgian song came from the French-speaking broadcaster RTBF, and I believe the French-speaking part is far less supportive of Palestine than the Dutch-speaking half. So unless RTBF sends a song again, we won't see Belgium next year. That NYT article stated that Norway and Portugal both came close to joining the boycott this year, so it's possible one of them will now pull out, most likely Portugal, after an NQ this year and its neighbour Spain already out. However, it looks like Hungary might come back following the change of government there. I think it'll be 35 countries again max. next year, unless something changes. Right now, I predict 34 countries (Belgium and Portugal out, Hungary back.)

I don't think viewing figures really matter when it comes to RTE television or radio. The radio listenership figures released last week were poor, and they were filed under "fully expected". Until heads roll for poor performance, nothing is really going to change.

I was thinking about the future of the contest from our perspective yesterday, and you have to wonder whether it is the right time for Ireland to take an extended break. We have been one of the worst-performing ever-present nations in the contest for the guts of 20 years, with no light at the end of that tunnel, when you consider the state of affairs in RTE.

I never bought into the boycott this year in the first place, for a variety of reasons, and the fact that they sent a team over to cover competition week, has to make you question the motivation behind it. Part of me wonders if the boycott was just an excuse to try to claw back some of the support they have lost over the past few years domestically, while also saving themselves from the now near-annual humiliation of nobody voting for their entry at the semi-final stage.

If the regime responded in a restrained way you would have had many more October the 7th type attacks in the last few years.

And when all of this quiets down you will have October 7th type attacks in years to come.

I just can't understand why we are siding with the backward Islamists instead of the western looking Israelis.

The irony being that Eurovision is such a LGBTQAI+ event and Israel is the only country in the region that is accepting of LGBTQAI+ folk.