If you think Eurovision is nothing more than glitter, key changes, and strategic voting between neighbours, think again. Seventy years in, Europe's biggest song contest continues to be fun alongside the loaded messaging and controversy. Five countries are boycotting. The bookies are watching Finland. And Luxembourg's own Eva Marija is about to take a violin to the stage in Vienna and remind the world exactly why this small country has returned.
This week, on The Lisa Burke Show, we sat down with two guests who between them know Eurovision inside out: Dr Dean Vuletic, the world's leading academic authority on the history of the Eurovision Song Contest and author of the definitive book on its political and cultural significance; and Sarah Tapp, RTL Today presenter, music business production student at Berklee College of Music, and the voice behind RTL's Eurovision commentary for the last two years. In this conversation we talk about contest and about what it tells us about the world we're living in right now.
Semi-Final 1: Tuesday 12 May, 21:00 CEST | Semi-Final 2: Thursday 14 May, 21:00 CEST | Grand Final: Saturday 16 May, 21:00 CEST
All shows take place at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria — city of Mozart, Beethoven, Conchita Wurst, and now the 70th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.
"Eurovision was established to experiment with the nascent technology of television," Dean told us, with the calm authority of someone who has spent years in European archives. "The people behind it just wanted to see if they could broadcast simultaneously live across Europe. It was not a peace project or a way to unify Europe - just a fun, technology experiment.”
And yet, almost immediately, it became exactly that. From the very first contest in 1956, the politics crept in. West Germany sent a Jewish Holocaust survivor as its representative. Within a decade, Eurovision songs were carrying messages about feminism, sexual liberation, and the hippie movement. In the 1980s there were anti-nuclear ballads. In the 1990s, songs about European unity. The collapse of the Berlin Wall was followed, in Eurovision time, by an influx of Central and Eastern European countries whose wins coincided almost exactly with their accession to the European Union.
"Eurovision is a political barometer," Dean says in his book, and it's a phrase that has never felt more apt than in 2026.
"Eurovision has reflected change rather than being a catalyst for it, but it is certainly Europe's biggest political barometer.”Dr. Dean Vuletic
Five countries will not be in Vienna this year: Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain. It is the largest political boycott in the contest's history, all in protest at Israel's continued participation while the war in Gaza continues.
So why is Israel there at all? The short answer is geography, or more precisely, a definition of broadcasting geography set in the interwar period. Israel is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union because it falls within the European Broadcasting Area, a technical zone defined by latitude and longitude in the era of early radio cooperation. The coordinates happen to include the Eastern Mediterranean. Israel joined the EBU after its establishment in 1948, and has been part of Eurovision ever since.
"It is not an exception, like Australia," Dean explains. "It is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union. That is the reason.”
As for the boycotting countries, they are exercising the same right that every EBU member has: to opt out. It's a choice that has been made before. The very first Eurovision boycott, Dean points out with a gleam in his eye, was by Austria's own ORF - the broadcaster now organising this year's contest - which refused to participate in 1969 when Eurovision was staged in Franco's Madrid. "You started it," was how Sarah put it, succintly.
"Last year Israel surged to the top on the public vote. There was a moment where everyone felt like, okay, we might have a geopolitical crisis right here.”Dr. Dean Vuletic
Last year's contest in Basel, Switzerland, saw Israel finish second, driven primarily by the televote - the global public vote that has been open to anyone in the world with an internet connection and a credit card since 2023. The Israeli government, it emerged, had invested significantly in a campaign to drive that vote, including advertising in Times Square in New York City.
"It is only equivalent to the vote of one participating country, the Rest of the World Vote," Dean notes, to keep perspective. But the optics were not lost on the EBU. This year, new rules are in place specifically to discourage "disproportionate promotion campaigns undertaken or supported by governments." The semi-finals will once again use a combination of jury and public vote, reversing a previous push toward 100% public voting.
Sarah has a theory, well several, actually, about what makes a Eurovision winner. And it's not what you might expect.
"Sex doesn't sell at Eurovision," Dean says, a line delivered with the confidence of someone who has watched every single entry since 1956. "The audience is more sophisticated than people think. They want songs with meaning - social, political meaning - because Eurovision is special exactly for that.”
Sarah goes further, identifying what she calls a "winning formula" that, ironically, rarely wins. Every year brings a crop of young female artists in sparkly bodysuits, a handful of wacky songs, and, if you're lucky, one performer who is so genuinely unique that the room goes quiet. Those are the ones she remembers: Salvador Sobral sitting down at a piano in a simple black suit in 2017, winning with a Portuguese ballad written by his sister. Bambi Thug from Ireland. Nemo, the non-binary Swiss artist who won in 2024 and whose use of they/them pronouns prompted what Sarah describes as "a sea change in terms of understanding" across European media.
"For me, that's the best part of Eurovision," Sarah says. "And I feel there is less and less of it.”
"Nemo's win with The Code did a lot to normalise conversations around gender identity - on one of the most watched televised events on the planet.”Sarah Tapp
One consistent statistical trend they have identified: songs featuring violin tend to do well. Eurovision's current bookies' favourite, Finland's Linda Lampenius, is a prodigiously talented violinist. Luxembourg's own Eva Marija - a 20-year-old singer-songwriter who fell in love with the violin at age three after watching Alexander Rybak win Eurovision 2009 - plays the instrument too.
Eva Marija won the Luxembourg Song Contest in January 2026 with ‘Mother Nature’, taking both the jury vote and the public vote by a wide margin. She performs fourth in the second semi-final on 14 May — the same semi-final that will feature France, the UK, and host country Austria performing as non-competing guests.
The song was co-written with a team including Thomas Stengaard (the songwriter behind Eurovision 2013 winner Only Teardrops) at a songwriting camp at the Rockhal in Esch-sur-Alzette. It was briefly the subject of plagiarism claims - a resemblance was alleged to Birdy's 2016 song Keeping Your Head Up - but RTL cleared the song following consultation with the EBU and music rights organisations. "I've listened to both side by side," says Sarah. "We don't think there's any copyright claim at all." It's also, she adds with careful objectivity, the only song from the entries she's heard so far that she genuinely loves.
"It's uplifting. It tells us what we need to do to survive this crazy world — go back to nature," Dean says. "And her violin playing is beautiful.”
The UK's entry this year is from LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER - a YouTuber and inventor known for building improbable musical instruments. The song is called Eins Zwei Drei, it is sung in German, and it is by most measures utterly unusual. It is also, both Dean and Sarah agree, fantastic and Innovative."Odd is good," said Dean. "As long as it's authentic.”
Eurovision Asia launches its inaugural edition in Bangkok on 14 November 2026, with ten countries signed up: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam. Australia, which had originally led the project following its 2015 entry into Eurovision, stepped back several years ago, finding the concept a difficult sell across such politically and culturally diverse territory.
"South Korea is a big player," Dean says. "Their pop music industry is now a global power. In my book I call it the Sweden of East Asia." Sarah, who lived in Japan for fifteen years, is excited and mildly disappointed Japan is not among the ten. "Thailand historically is very strong at this type of thing," she notes, thinking of Miss World, of spectacle, of stagecraft.
The scale of Eurovision's global ambition is staggering when you step back and look at it. A technical broadcasting experiment in 1956. A Cold War soft power tool. A home for LGBTQ+ visibility. The world's biggest election. And now, going east.
"Eurovision is Europe's biggest election. Since 2023, it's become the world's biggest because anyone with the internet and a credit card can vote.”
Dean will be in the fan zone in Vienna, standing, for the full four-to-five hours, front and centre, as he has been for years, giving talks and doing media through Eurovision week.
Sarah will be in Amsterdam catching the opening night of Harry Styles' world tour ("the only thing I love more than Eurovision"), while her colleagues Melissa Dalton and Meredith Moss take over the RTL commentary desk for Grand Final night.
For the rest of us watching from the sofa: popcorn is the Tapp household's official Eurovision snack. The official cocktail of this summer, according to Sarah, is the Britney Spritz - look it up, batch-make it, thank her later.
And if you want to understand what you're watching beyond the sequins and the block voting and the impeccable chaos of it all - the seventy years of history underneath - read Dean's book. Then listen to this episode of The Lisa Burke Show. Then come back for more, because we'll be covering it all the way to the Grand Final on 16 May.
Dean Vuletic — Official Website
Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (Bloomsbury Academic)
🎶 Eurovision 2026 – Official Links
Eurovision 2026 Official Website — Vienna
Bookies' Odds — Eurovoix World
Luxembourg — Eva Marija: Mother Nature
🎙 The Lisa Burke Show – Listen & Follow
🍹 The Hangover with Sarah Tapp – RTL Today Radio
The Hangover Show on RTL Today Radio
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