Eurovision, everyone’s favourite or least favourite time of year, and boy did it deliver a big one. Controversial entries, controversial voting, and a year to enter the history books.

Won by Austria, Eurovision 2025 was shrouded in geopolitical tensions, even if the EBU had hoped to have a less controversial competition than the previous year. However, viewership rose, Austria won the contest for the 3^rd time, and the UK…well we once more got 0 points from the public.

Genuinely What the Hell Just Happened? Once again, the whole continent was engrossed by the glitz and glamour of Eurovision, social media alight with opinions, and songs topped the charts. Having personally now been at 3 contests and multiple different national selection shows, let me guide you through Eurovision 2025: A Controversial Year in Review.

National Final Season

For most people, Eurovision is a one-night contest held in May. For the most loyal fans, or as I get called “weirdos”, it starts September 1^st the year before. This is the earliest a song can be released if you want to sing it at Eurovision. Most countries host selection shows called national finals to make their choice, think of it as the X Factor. That is if the X Factor was actually good and winning it meant representing your country, not dealing with a Simon Cowell record deal.

Highlights of the 2025 National Final season included the strongest ever Finnish national final, with Erika Vikman coming out comfortably victorious with her raunchy song ‘ICH KOMME’. It means I’m Coming in English, if you don’t understand her meaning yet, go translate the lyrics. In Sweden, Finnish group KAJ beat 2015 Eurovision Mans Zelmerlöw to take the Swedish language to Eurovision for the first time in 27 years. I will take no further questions that Sweden were represented by Norwegians last year and the Finns this year.

Ireland saw Norwegian singer Emmy win their selection show with a song about a Russian dog called Laika that got lost in space. Again, I will take no further questions. Germany returned to a national final with Charli XCX wannabe Abor & Tynna bringing the German language back to Eurovision.

Here, we don’t like giving the public the choice. Probably because last time the UK had a national final we selected Michael Rice, and that was a choice. Remember Monday were chosen to represent the country, with pop/country/musical theatre song ‘What the Hell Just Happened’ being their song of choice. In Basel we got 0 points from the public. Again.

Eurovision

After being whisked on a press extravaganza, singing at a bunch of random Eurovision pre-parties where budding fans judge acts based on how little sleep and how bad the sound quality is, the Eurovision circus landed in Switzerland. If you’ve not worked out yet, Eurovision fans are brutal.

After 2024 where many of the open-door Eurovision events were cancelled, Basel was a city transformed by Eurovision. They transformed a convention centre into the first-ever indoor Eurovision Village, dedicated multiple streets to celebrating the contest, and hosted a watch party in the country’s largest football stadium.

The competition itself? It wasn’t the strongest it’s ever been. And voting was more controversial than ever. In the semi-final, Ireland failed to qualify once more, Australia for the 2^nd time ever, and Belgium dropped out in the biggest shock of the week. In the final, well it continued. Israel won the public vote, whether fairly or not we’ll never truly understand, the UK gained 0 points for the 2^nd year from the public, hosts Switzerland finished 2^nd in the Jury and last in the public vote also getting 0 points, and Austria eventually came out on top with JJ’s Wasted Love winning the contest.

Eurovision 2025 may go into the history books for all the wrong reasons but for the EBU (the organisers) it was a great contest. Viewership went up 4 million, social media was more alight with conversation than ever, and 39 songs reached the world, some going higher on the charts than most. For Estonia, Sweden and Norway their songs were just some of those who went viral worldwide, something which is becoming more common from Eurovision.

Was it the Eurovision we all wanted? Unlikely, but it was still Eurovision. It was fun, camp, and crazy. Fantastic TV that we all were glued to. Discussions have already started for Eurovision 2026, we know it will be taking place in Vienna, in the same venue it did 11 years ago, and Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria will all return to compete. 

But with threats of boycotts, participation votes and more geopolitical drama it is still unknown what the contest will truly look like. But that all arrives in the new year. I’ll be back in January with everything Eurovision, from National Final season to Vienna, to tell you first who will represent the UK and who will host. From me in 2025 however, there is just one last thing to say, Good Evening Europe!