It’s a little over a week until the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, held this year in Basel, Switzerland. I don’t know about you, but I can almost smell the latex and hairspray. For many, Eurovision is an annual ritual of humiliation whereby families gather round the television on a Saturday night to scorn the nations of Europe for their questionable performances and voting patterns. For others, Eurovision is a progressive celebration of different cultures which promotes inclusivity, fosters diversity, and allows countries as small as San Marino to share the stage with musical powerhouses like the United Kingdom.
Beyond acting as a song contest, Eurovision has also become a symbol of queer culture, the Wadstock of the European world. In 2014, Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst won the contest, and ten years later, Switzerland’s Nemo became Eurovision’s first non-binary winner. Aside from the artists, merely enjoying Eurovision has become shorthand for being gay. Telling people that I enjoy the contest feels like coming out all over again. By the same token, seeing my boyfriend squirm when I force him to watch Moldova’s entry in 2011 feels like an advert for conversion therapy.
All these interpretations are fundamentally reductive. Eurovision is far from an event that’s onenight-only. In fact, ‘Eurovision season’ begins several months prior to the show in September, as national broadcasters choose who they wish to represent them on an international stage. For some nations, Eurovision is the largest platform they get to show themselves off. Countries like Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan value Eurovision as an opportunity to showcase their unique and diverse cultures to an audience who otherwise wouldn’t be able to spell ‘Azerbaijan’ if you put a gun to their head. As such, Eurovision is not just a song contest which forces a captive audience to consume three hours of kitsch Euro-slop, but rather a platform for artists and delegations to show off their country in front of as many as 200 million viewers.
A European platform
Here in the UK, we like to mock Eurovision artists from their questionable fashion right up to their even more questionable vocals. Across Europe, however, Eurovision is a treasured institution. Last year, 96% of television viewers in Iceland tuned in to watch the Money, money, money contest. Other high viewing shares were reported in Sweden (87%), Norway (86%), Croatia (73%), and Lithuania (70%). By contrast, the viewing share last year for the UK was just 47%. It goes without mentioning that the reach of Eurovision exceeds household viewing – pubs, bars, and JCRs all take part in the fun too. Last year, I fondly remember ordering a pint of Orchard Pig at St Hilda’s as a Slovenian woman sang a song called ‘Veronika’ in the background: a night to remember (if only I could).
Despite such watch parties, though, Eurovision is not as salient on this side of the Channel. One reason for this apathetic attitude towards the contest is the legacy of our commentating tradition. Prior to Graham Norton, the main commentator for the BBC’s coverage of Eurovision was Terry Wogan, whose dry and sardonic humour meant that the contest wasn’t held in great regard during the late 90s and early 2000s. Furthermore, successive victories in the early 2000s by Eastern Bloc countries led to a sentiment that Western countries were being deliberately sidelined by voters. Notoriously, Wogan claimed that the UK’s dreaded nul points in 2003 was due to “post-Iraq backlash”. Regardless of whether it’s Iraq in 2003 or Brexit in 2016, it seems that UK viewers and commentators will go to no end in blaming external factors for dreadful finishes in the contest.
Valued at £7.6 billion in 2023, the UK music industry does not need Eurovision to prove its worth. As embarrassing as Jemini’s performance of ‘Cry Baby’ was in 2003, it didn’t have major repercussions on the UK’s international image. Even Jemini eventually profited from the ordeal, performing at a John Lewis in 2023 when Liverpool hosted the event (très chic). While larger countries usually dominate World Cups and Olympics, even the likes of Malta and Luxembourg get in the limelight at Eurovision. Every broadcaster is subject to the same rules: one act; three minutes; five partially-clothed dancers.
Juries and anti-intellectualism
What do the Brexit referendum, Donald Trump’s first election victory, and Eurovision 2023 all have in common? Apart from acting as evidence that people should never be allowed to vote on anything ever, all three events have epitomised a narrative that socalled ‘experts’ are wrong. In the Brexit referendum, economists warned about the financial ramifications of leaving the EU; in both the 2016 and 2024 US elections, it was a desire to ‘drain the swamp’ which propelled Trump to victory; and in Eurovision, there has been backlash towards the juries as ‘music experts’ which epitomises this anti-intellectualist trend.
In 2023, backlash was especially pronounced following Sweden’s victory at the contest. Despite Finland topping the public vote in eighteen different countries, accruing 376 televotes, it was Sweden’s Loreen which triumphed overall owing to a large jury score. Though discrepancies between jury and televote scores aren’t new, they have only been clearly visible to non-Eurovision geeks since 2016, when results ceased being combined into one overall ranking. For televote winner Finland to have an 133-point-lead with the public, and yet still miss out on the trophy, was a very public display of jury/televote misalignment.
The 50/50 jury/televote system began in 2009 following successive victories by Eastern Bloc countries in the early 2000s. As Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union splintered into several countries, Eastern Europe began to achieve a monopoly in the televoting system of the early 2000s. Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Serbia, and Russia are all Eastern European countries which won for the first time in this era. Though neighbourly voting is not unique to Eastern Europe, with Scandinavian countries also exchanging high points, the arrival of many Eastern European nations in the 2000s made their regional alliances particularly influential in shaping the leaderboard. Notably, in 2007, not a single Western European country finished on the left-hand side of the scoreboard, nevermind placing in the top 10.
This ‘bloc voting’ concerned executives at the EBU who sought to improve the quality of music at the contest and to curtail the Eastern European dominance. The result was the introduction of ‘juries’. Each jury would consist of a panel of five ‘music experts’ whose ranking of the performances would constitute 50% of a country’s overall voting result. T hough this was controversial right from the outset, there was a general acceptance that the introduction of juries would, and did, improve the overall quality of entries in the contest.
Recently, the debate has become more heated. The last time that the juries and televote agreed on the winner of a contest was in 2017, when Salvador Sobral topped both scorecards for Portugal. The last time a televote winner won the overall contest was in 2022, with Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra propelling them to victory in a Eurovision season defined by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2023 and 2024, however, it has been the jury winner who has triumphed over the televote favourites. As such, resentment towards the juries is understandable. The jury/televote debate is, however, more complex than this. What qualifies as a ‘music expert’ to the EBU is ambiguous and has therefore been the source of confusion. For instance, a member of the Swedish jury in 2013 was a 40-yearold backing singer called Monika. Monika may know how to hold a note; but should this ability give her the same voting power as hundreds of thousands of Swedish televoters? Thus far, the jury is out.
Regardless of where a particular audience member stands on this debate, though, its very nature acts as a microcosm for anti-intellectualism and indeed populist discourse which questions the notion that expertise and experience should qualify individuals to hold positions of power. It’s a trope that has been particularly common in recent election cycles. For Eurofans, though, it’s been in our conversations for a while. Often, the discourses that the contest generates are replicated on a grander and more potent scale.
Money, money, money
Though the EBU does not make any money from organising Eurovision, the contest is nevertheless a substantial revenue stream. Ticket-sales, sponsorships, and adverts all offset the costs of running the contest and, as such, the EBU tries to incentivise certain countries to keep participating in order to reduce the losses they would otherwise face. Sites like The Conversation have suggested that Israel’s continued participation in the contest, despite the war with Hamas, is driven not only by a desire to retain their participation fee but also by the influence of Eurovision’s main sponsor, Moroccanoil, an Israeli cosmetics company that could pull its support if Israel withdrew. Their continued involvement with Eurovision following the Israel-Hamas war has increased tensions in recent contests, which has rubbed off on how the contest is perceived. One Oxford student told me the contest is “dystopian”. Another told me the EBU has “incomprehensible ways of policing which political statements are allowed, and who can share them”. For the fans, the continued participation of Israel is a question of morality. For the EBU, though, it may be one of finances.
In the past, some host cities have profited from the increased revenue streams brought by Eurovision. In 2023, for instance, Liverpool generated an extra £20 million after hosting the contest in 2023. However, organising Eurovision can also be a financial burden. Copenhagen lost big in 2014 after its organisers baffling decided to construct a new arena in a disused shipyard, only for it to literally never be used again.
Beyond budgets, hosting Eurovision can also be considered controversial as countries use the opportunity to polish their image in much the same way that they do so on stage. Azerbaijan was accused held a contest known for its queer following whilst maintaining a crackdown on queer communities, and also evicted local families to build its 2011 venue. More recently, the 2024 edition held in Malmö was remarkably tense owing to the large Muslim population of the city protesting Israel’s participation, with death threats allegedly levelled towards Israel’s representative, Eden Golan. Eurovision can thus act not just as a microcosm, but indeed as a melting pot of anxiety and conflict. Far from its origins as a festival designed to promote peaceful coexistence following WWII, critics argue that modern-day Eurovision is more divisive and violent than ever.
Twelve points to politics!
Eurovision is embroiled in geopolitics and queer politics alike. Though Eurofans like me do enjoy the contest for its own sake – and believe me, nothing makes me happier than when someone gets my reference when I say that an outfit is ‘giving Barbara Dex’ – an awareness of the contest can often offer more insight into the complexities of geopolitics, self-determination, and performativity than several feature-length op-eds in the New York Times or Atlantic. Eurovision is a microcosm as well as a melting pot; an escape from conflict as well as an arena for it to play out on stage. Political whilst professing to be anything but, Eurovision is an event that’s full of contradictions. That’s what makes it so fun to watch. Next time someone loudly boasts that Eurovision ‘is just political’, whether this be a family member or fellow college bar goer, nod your head in agreement. However, although such statements are intended to lessen the value of the contest, it really just makes Eurovision all the more fascinating to follow.
