As at seems, 3 years after everything went to hell, we got for the first time a pro-is***l winner. That's sad but predictable considering who's left to compete after the boycott and EBU draconian rules for anyone who wished to speak up
#eurovision
By the looks of it I predicted right
-top 10
-places 11-20
-bottom 5
all of the above just not in the right order
-spot on albania and UK
I clearly overestimated Finland (who didn't) and underestimated Italy and Norway
#eurovision
๐ฒ๐น INSIGHT: How many of Malta's YouTube views are real?
With over 19 million views across all official uploads of Aidan's "Bella", Malta boasts the second-most watched #Eurovision 2026 entry on YouTube, only after Italy.
It's no secret that Malta conducted an extensive promotional campaign this year, which included billboards in Lithuania and Hungary, buses plastered with "Vote for Malta" ads in Romania and Cyprus, and, of course, YouTube commercials featuring parts of the song's video and performances. In the first 11 days of May, these YouTube ads drove "Bella"'s total views from 2.3 million to 13.9 million.
Both videos of the semi-final and the grand final's live performances uploaded on the Eurovision's YouTube channel showed non-organic trajectories: both had extremely high views in the first few hours, despite a relatively low number of likes and comments, and then completely stalled. The grand final live performance has been stuck at 1.5 million views for six hours as this post is being written. Yet, it drew less likes and comments than Croatia's "Andromeda", the 19th-most watched grand final performance, currently with 240,000 views.
Of "Bella"'s 19 million YouTube views, only roughly 3.5 million, less than one in five, can be considered genuine according to the tracking model we've been using.
Malta's unprecedented promotional campaign resulted in 8 points from the televote in the Eurovision final--placing it in the bottom five from the public's point of view.
This isn't the first time Malta has been found using tricks to inflate their winning chances: in 2021, they were reported by French website Pure Charts to have spent up to โฌ650,000 on overhyping their entry by betting on it and making it the bookies' favorite throughout the build-up to the event.
In a unique moment of partiality from this account, we can only hope that no public money coming from Maltese taxpayers was spent on this.
Notes:
-Definitely the worst hosts of the decade.
-Bad card-postals only better than those of Turin.
-Finland winning the whole thing.
-Moldova winning the televoting (after *that* country)
-Possibly the worst interval act of all times.
-FREE FREE PALESTINE CHANT
#eurovision
These last years the contest has lost this magic touch that had on me 20+ years ago. Watching it has become a little bit harder, but anyways.
Happy first #eurovision semifinal one, everyone!
The New York Times has investigated Israel's Eurovision campaign and the EBU's response. Findings include:
๐น2025 voting data was not fully investigated
๐ธBroadcasters faced pressure from the EBU and Israeli diplomats
๐นEBU lawyers stated Israel could have been excluded in 2026
๐ณ๐ด TV2 reports that the EBU has requested changes to JONAS LOVV's choreography.
"You're going to think it's nonsense, but the show is too sexy. I'm not joking for a second. [...] We'll fix it, it's just that I have to move a little differently than I have done so far."
At this point I'm very convinced that female singers from Montenegro are obliged to wear a circle around their head due to a special part in their contract #turquoisecarpet#eurovision