I told you on Friday night that “if consensus wins, Finland wins. If Eurovision wants its 2026 surprise, it lives at slot #8 (Australia), slot #10 (Malta), or slot #22 (Italy).” Eurovision wanted its surprise. And it lived at slot #12: Bulgaria’s Dara, with “Bangaranga”. Bulgaria didn’t just win — it demolished the field with 516 points, a record-breaking 173-point margin (beating Alexander Rybak’s 169 in 2009). It won both the jury (204) and the televote (312) — the first ti
Few hours to go. Tonight, 21:00 CEST, Wiener Stadthalle, Vienna. The 70th Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final is upon us. Over the last two weeks I've been writing about this contest from every angle I could — the lyrics, the fun stats, the network analysis, and the streaming numbers. All of it built on the data infrastructure I've been developing with my co-authors Alessia Morrone, Barbara Będowska-Sójka, Sabrina Giordano, and Claudia Tarantola. A lot has changed since I pub
The Eurovision 2026 Grand Final is in five days — Saturday 16 May, 21:00 CEST, live from the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna. Thirty-five countries; twenty-five spots in the final; one crystal microphone. So who wins? Last year I closed the pre-final piece with a simple line: let's keep our spreadsheets on one side and our hearts on the other. This year I'm doing the same — but the spreadsheets are bigger. With my co-authors Alessia Morrone, Barbara Będowska-Sójka, Sabrina Giorda
After the lyrics analysis and the fun stats post, I wanted to try one more angle on Eurovision 2026 before Saturday's Grand Final. This time: a network. In the academic work I've been doing with my co-authors Alessia Morrone, Barbara Będowska-Sójka, Sabrina Giordano, and Claudia Tarantola, we use network analysis to study how countries vote for each other in Eurovision — who has voting alliances, who's culturally close, who sits on the periphery. That work is at the country l
So Eurovision 2026 is upon us — the 70th edition, hosted by Vienna for the third time in the contest's history (after 1967 and 2015). After last week's post on what the 2026 lyrics tell us, I went back into the data with a different question: what are the strangest, most surprising numbers behind this year's contest? Some come from the lyrics dataset I built with Alessia Morrone, Barbara Będowska-Sójka, Sabrina Giordano, and Claudia Tarantola. Others come from the bookmakers,
It's that time of year again — the Eurovision Song Contest returns this week for its 70th edition, this time hosted by Vienna after JJ's win for Austria with Wasted Love last year. The 70th anniversary makes 2026 a milestone edition, and 35 countries are competing across two semi-finals and a Grand Final at the Wiener Stadthalle. 📅 Don't miss it! Semi-Final 1: 12 May, 21:00 CEST Semi-Final 2: 14 May, 21:00 CEST Grand Final: 16 May, 21:00 CEST Stream it live on Eurovision's o
