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

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