Star Spangled Eurovision

a woman is smiling and holding a trophy and says `` you like me you really like me '' . ALT: a woman is smiling and holding a trophy and says `` you like me you really like me '' .

NEW EPISODE! Join us as we cover this year's Eurovision entries from Luxembourg 🇱🇺, Ukraine 🇺🇦, Cyprus 🇨🇾, and Denmark 🇩🇰! Plus - Alix rants in Danish!

Listen at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts!

starspangledeurovision.blubrry.net

Dont you just hate it when the outfit is way more interesting than the song itself? Feels like a waste. #Dora2026

From Ashes to Flame actually not bad at all. Not super exciting but solid #Dora2026

Could be more interrupted #Dora2026

Is #Dora more interesting than #SingforGreece? Should I switch over?

This feels like it was trying for MCR but ended up at a high school talent show

You and I both know that performance has no place at Eurovision #SingforGreece

Finally tuning into a NF this season, let's go Greece! #SingforGreece

a man singing into a microphone with a leather vest on ALT: a man singing into a microphone with a leather vest on

We're back!

Join us as we open our 9th (!!) season with our hot takes on the entries from Albania, Montenegro, Moldova, and Malta, and our predictions for this weird Eurovision year.

Listen at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts

starspangledeurovision.blubrry.net

Honesty, I'd go see it.

Still need your Eurovision fix? Take a listen to our 2025 Debrief and celebrate 100 episodes with us!

a group of men sitting next to each other with the number 12 on the bottom right ALT: a group of men sitting next to each other with the number 12 on the bottom right

NEW EPISODE! Join us as we break down this year's chaotic Eurovision and give our thoughts on where the contest goes from here. Also, it's our 100th episode!!!!

Listen at the link below or wherever you get your podcasts!

starspangledeurovision.blubrry.net

If Eurovision is a competition between broadcasters and not governments then there's an easy justification for not allowing anyone other than the broadcasters themselves to pay for promo. Or at least banning governments from doing so.

Not sure if the EBU can make any rules about this (i.e. third parties aside from the broadcaster and contestant cannot pay for advertisements/promotional campaigns) but if for some reason they decide not to ban Israel from the contest then maybe this is a potential solution.

Basically, the Israeli government can put a stupid amount of money into advertisements everywhere for their act that dwarf the amount any other broadcaster or contestant can. They're not breaking the rules, but it's not exactly fair either.

Israeli government agency paid for adverts targeting Eurovision Song Contest public vote All participating countries were targeted with ads on Google products

Weirdly, I think the most appropriate parallel here are Super PACs here in the US. They're not doing anything illegal, per se, but allow unlimited amounts of money to be spent in favor of a political candidate, giving them a huge advantage over others.

spotlight.ebu.ch/p/israeli-go...

Interesting that Portugal was the last true consensus winner - not just because Salvador won both the jury and the televote, but that the average discrepancy between jury and televote for ESC winners since 2016 is 102 points and the difference between jury and televote for Salvador was just 6 points

Playing with a few numbers, and not only did Austria receive the lowest televote score (178) of any winner since we started splitting results, the difference between JJ's and Salvador Sobral's total scores (322) is more than Maneskin's entire televote (318) and almost as much as Jamala's (323).

Tell me that Sergio Jaen isn't the Eurovision Robert Eggers and that we aren't getting a Northman-themed staging next year.

Quick reminder that there's no new episode today! We'll have our annual debrief for you soon, but we need to digest these results and the fallout a bit first.

Thanks to everyone who came to our Grand Final watch party at the Queen Vic! It was such a great time!!

Especially when the jury and televote seem so far apart, it really looks like they're out of touch with the voting public. In this case the juries "saved" Eurovision from Israel winning, but overall I do think that the more these disparities increase, the more the voting public will tune out.

Final point: having the jury winner take the crown three years in a row is unsustainable. I understand that the jury is there to "moderate" the types of songs we get to some extent but when it seems like they're actively crowning someone at the expense of televote favorites, it's not a good look.

Allowing Israel to win could kill the contest. That's the reality we live in. But how they justify banning Israel now when they haven't up to this point will be interesting to see if they go down that route.

That said, I'm extremely happy for JJ and Austria, but that was too close. I hope that the EBU sees what we all see and that's a voting system that is too easily hacked by a vocal minority voting for a country with no way to vote against. I'm curious how they'll deal with this, to be honest.

Initial reactions:

Overall, a fantastic show. Everyone truly brought their A-game and the level of staging and creativity was truly through the roof.

Happy Grand Final Day!! If you're in the DMV come join us at The Queen Vic on H street!

Exactly. Not one i really listen to or ever will again, probably. That said, I thought the staging was amazing.

That said, gutted for Belgium and Cyprus. Both had fantastic stagings and deserved to qualify. But ultimately those songs never really connected with people, and in some ways I do think that staging can only do so much to elevate a song whereas a good song is very forgiving of bad staging.

Feeling vindicated about my prediction that bookies were underrating Iceland and Portugal and overrating Belgium. I did think Norway was going to be the other casualty but that may be an instance of friendly countries putting him over the top.