Saturday, May 16, 2026. It’s a warm day in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Few Americans ever hear about Vienna, yet tonight, its importance cannot be overstated. More than 100 million people have their eyes glued to their television screens, waiting with palpable anticipation for the winner of Europe’s preeminent song competition to be announced. Suddenly, the message comes: “Bangaranga” has won Eurovision. But what does that actually mean?
Eurovision, officially the Eurovision Song Contest, is an international song competition organized by the European Broadcasting Union that started in 1956. Each participating country submits one original song no longer than three minutes that can feature up to six artists. To win Eurovision, a song must first make it to the Eurovision finals. The host country, last year’s winner, and the “Big Five”—France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom—automatically advance to the finals, but everyone else has to qualify through one of two semi-final rounds.
The semi-finals are decided by televote, meaning audiences can vote for their favorite artist via the official app or a text to their national broadcaster. Each country awards points to the top ten of their population’s televote. To prevent conflicts of interest, countries aren’t able to vote for themselves.
The qualifiers, plus the automatic entrants, then compete in the final. In addition to another televote, each national broadcaster also selects a jury of five music industry pros (like famous producers or former Eurovision winners) to create a list of their top ten songs and award points on the same scale. At the end of the night, whichever country has the most points wins Eurovision, granting them the exclusive right to host next year’s competition and secure the lucrative tourism it brings with it. This year, Bulgaria won both the jury and televote, which no country has done since 2017.
Despite its simple-sounding premise, Eurovision’s history has been anything but that. The competition quickly rose from just seven participating countries to 37 in 2025, and as the competition grew, so did new controversies. In 2022, Russia was banned following its invasion of Ukraine. Using a similar argument, Israel’s continued participation has sparked backlash in recent years because of the country’s human rights violations in Gaza. In response, five broadcasters including Spain and Ireland announced they were boycotting this year’s Eurovision. This is not new. The first major Eurovision controversy started all the way back in 1964, when a man rushed the stage to protest the inclusion of the fascist Spanish and Portuguese governments. Later, in 1969, the Austrian national broadcaster boycotted the competition because it was being held in fascist Spain. Today’s disputes are only the latest in a long line of controversies.
Eurovision is a huge cultural unifier in Europe. It creates a shared pool of experiences that can be drawn upon from Paris to Warsaw. So while it may not be the European Grammys, it might be worth tuning in to see what’s going on across the pond.
