This weekend sees the final of the 69th Eurovision Song Contest. This contest - for some people ‘dated’, for others “political” and for yet more ‘a true religion’ - attracts nearly 200 million spectators, making it the most watched non-sporting event in the world. Ahead of Europe’s biggest singing event, The New Federalist team offers you a guide to watching Eurovision like a pro!
Where? When? How? The Eurovision TL;DR
Let’s begin with the fundamentals: Eurovision 2025 will be hosted in the Swiss city of Basel, after their triumph last year with the song The Code by Nemo, Switzerland’s representative at the 2024 edition of the contest. The Final will take place on Saturday, 17 May, preceded by two Semi-Finals on 13 and 15 May respectively.
These semi-finals aim to decide between the 37 candidate countries through a qualification process based solely on the public vote. Of the 37 candidates, 26 will then take part in Saturday’s final. This selection has been introduced to shorten the length of the final... but you can still expect between 3 and 4 hours of entertainment from this ‘tightened’ version.
If you’re a fan of the French, Italian or British entries, don’t worry about your favourite getting through to the final. These challengers, as well as the German, Spanish and Swiss entries, are automatically qualified for the final without having to go through the semi-finals. France, Italy, the UK, Germany and Spain are all part of the ‘Big Five’: the five biggest contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which organises Eurovision. Switzerland also qualifies automatically as the host country. Although this rule is being contested within the EBU, for the moment, there is no credible alternative that would combine equal treatment of member states with safeguarding generous national contributions to the EBU.
Continuing with the Eurovision Song Contest rules, let’s look at the system that will decide the winners of Saturday’s final. To rank the candidates and determine the winner, Eurovision applies a points system: the first half of the points are awarded by a professional jury, while the second half is awarded by public vote. For the jury vote, each participating country has a national jury of five professionals. These professionals assess the performances of the other countries (except their own, of course) based on criteria such as vocal quality, composition, originality of the song, stage performance and overall impression. Each member of the jury draws up a personal ranking of the songs, and the results are then combined to form an overall ranking for the national jury as its whole. On this basis, points are awarded to the ten highest-ranked songs: 12 points for the first, 10 for the second, and then 1-8 points for the following songs. Each national delegation then announces its ranking publicly, ending with the mythical phrase ‘ Et les Douze points vont à... ’, usually said in French with exaggerated and theatrical suspense. Then come the public votes. The points accumulated and translated from the viewers’ votes are announced by the evening’s hosts, country by country, as they work their way up the rankings based on the points awarded by the jury. The country with the fewest points from the jury goes first, while the country with the most goes last. And the very last points awarded by the public will determine the winner of Eurovision!
Although the usual rules will be applied at Eurovision 2025, the 69th edition stands out in one respect: it is setting a record of linguistic diversity. This year, 25 countries have chosen to sing all or part of their song in a language other than English. No fewer than 21 languages will be competing.
Who are the favourites to win Eurovision?
While every year, one or two potential winners stand out, this year, even with a week to go before the event, it remains uncertain. Even the biggest Eurovision fans seem unable to pick a clear favourite, such is the closeness and unpredictability of this year’s competition. Three candidates, however, seem to tick all the boxes to claim victory.
Sweden
The first contender is Sweden...or rather, Finland.
This year, Sweden has chosen KAJ as its representative, with their song Bara Bada Bastu (Just Go to the Sauna). This comedy group hails from Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, and tackles stereotypes, both those the Finns have of Swedish speakers and those Sweden has of Finland. The song - full of cultural references, self-mockery and sung entirely in the Finnish dialect of Swedish - managed to qualify for Eurovision when it competed against former Eurovision winner Måns Zelmerlöw in the national final. In a country whose music industry is known to be focused on mainstream, English-language pop, KAJ has achieved the impossible: representing Sweden at Eurovision with a humorous song in Swedish, something that has not happened for almost 30 years.
For KAJ, it has already been a success: Bara Bada Bastu is on the top chart list of Spotify, with nearly 40 million streams all around Europe!
Austria
The other serious competitor this year is from Austria.
11 years after Conchita Wurst’s victory in the Contest, which allowed Austria to host the 2015 edition of the Eurovision, the country has once again banked on an impressive vocal performance. It is a young opera singer, JJ, who is representing the country this year, with his song Wasted Love. The performance combines the vocal talent of a countertenor with the dynamic rhythm of an electro hit.
While the song may well please the jury and accumulate the Douze Points, winning over the public may be more of a challenge. Indeed, Wasted love, despite a polished performance, could find that its hybrid of styles pleases no one, and lose its chances of victory. All we have to do now is wait until 17 May for the verdict.
France
After the remarkable successes of Barbara Pravi, La Zarra and Slimane, France is one of the favourites again this year.
Louane has been chosen to represent France in the competition, with her song Maman. The ballad is personal and moving, and echoes another of Louane’s hits - also entitled Maman. The Eurovision song is a response to that first song, in which the singer (well known to French-speaking audiences) expressed the grief she suffered as a teenager following the death of her mother.
The song has touched the hearts of the European public, even non-French speakers. But does France just want to win, or is there something more they’re looking for?
An important question. It’s not that France Télévision (head of the French Eurovision delegation) wouldn’t like to win the Contest, but their actions over the past few years seem to indicate another strategy at play: to restore the French public’s passion for Eurovision. After years of mixed success, both in terms of Eurovision rankings and audience figures, France Télévision has decided to send singers to the Contest who are already well established on the French music scene (Slimane, La Zara, Louane). The results speak for themselves: better rankings and, above all, a spectacular revival of interest in Eurovision among the French. From the 3 million French viewers who watched the final in 2022, the number rose to over 5 million in 2024, representing almost 40% of the audience share. This success has been confirmed by France Télévision, which has announced the creation of a national competition for 2026, to have the public choose France’s representative at the next Eurovision Song Contest. If Louane doesn’t win Eurovision this year, it’s fair to say that she will still have helped to publicise the contest to the French public.
But if the list of potential winners stopped at three, no one would be describing Eurovision 2025 as unpredictable. Other candidates may yet claim victory about the search for hope in a destroyed world; C’est la Vie, the Dutch song sung in French and English by Claude and recounting his and his family’s journey from Congolese refugee to successful singer in the Netherlands; Ich Komme which, as its title suggests, is the Finnish entry, performed by Erika Vikman, whose performance is a subtle reference to an orgasm that is as unapologetic as it is feminist.
Eurovision? Spill the tea!
Every year, Eurovision has its share of controversies and dramas, and Eurovision 2025 is no exception.
One of the first controversies concerned the Maltese song, Kant, which was censored by the EBU at the request of the BBC (leading the British delegation). Although ‘kant’ means ‘sing’ in Maltese, the word was deemed to be too close to a well-known insult used by English speakers, which led to its removal from the programme. While this decision was welcomed by some as a way of avoiding misunderstanding, it also raised questions about the place of freedom of expression in a competition that is supposed to celebrate cultural diversity. Although the Maltese singer complied with the EBU’s request for censorship, she chose to rewrite her song in a somewhat provocative way: in place of the word ‘kant’ there is now a silence that it’s up to the audience to fill in.
Another controversy erupted over the Greek song, Asteromata, which makes an implicit reference to the Pontic genocide of Greeks in 1915-1919, an event that Turkey still refuses to recognise today. The reference provoked a furious reaction from Turkey, who threatened to lodge an official complaint against the EBU. The Turkish threat did not have the desired effect and only drew attention to the song, giving it greater visibility and popularity.
Finally, the participation of Georgia and Israel did not escape dispute, notably because of the political instrumentalization of their songs. On the Georgian side, the entry of Mariam Shengelia with her song Freedom caused major offence. The singer portrays a regime accused of violently repressing recent pro-democracy demonstrations. However, she herself is close to the authoritarian, pro-Russian Georgian government, which blatantly contradicts the message of freedom that her song claims to convey. For its part, Israel’s participation in the contest has rekindled tensions linked to the ongoing war of annihilation in Gaza. More than 70 former participants signed a letter calling for Israel’s exclusion, criticising Israeli public broadcaster KAN for propagandising the military interventions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government. Several countries, including Ireland and Spain, have also asked the EBU to open a debate on Israel’s participation in the competition.
But Eurovision’s controversies do not seem to have dented the massive audience enthusiasm for the contest, nor the integrity of the public vote, which remains focused on the quality of the songs and shows. All that’s left for me to do is to wish you a great Eurovision week and a wonderful Eurovision final show! May the best competitor win!
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