The Innocent Comment That Unlocks The Contest
The first Semi Final of 2026’s Eurovision Song Contest featured a curious pre-recorded video splicing together comments about the Song Contest from fans and former artists. It’s a fun segment featuring Will Ferrell and Miriana Conte that explains why Eurovision means so much to so many.
A particularly on-message comment stood out as a sentiment that the European Broadcasting Union seems to be pushing more than any other. Speaking about the Contest, an Austrian fan of the Contest, Herby, said:
“It has taught me to see the world not as it is, but as it should be.”
It must be noted that the same fan who expressed this sentiment also said the Song Contest helped him come out. There is absolutely nothing to criticise or opine about there. The other statement, however, is a curious choice, but it’s one that the EBU was certainly more than happy to include in the first of this year’s live shows, given that it is an echo of similar sentiments it has made to the press.
When Idealism Points To The Wrong Road
In the same Semi Final, our hosts regularly pushed the idea of ‘United by Music,’ a phrase that the EBU has previously announced as the Eurovision Song Contest’s permanent slogan. Near the end of the show, co-host Victoria Swarovski went as far as to declare that a state of ‘United by Music’ had been achieved. Such platitudes are easy to make when the concept is so nebulous, but the presence of protesters and reports of fans being ejected from the arena would suggest that there is still a way to go.
In a challenging world, we can indeed be United by Music.
Martin Green, concluding a 2025 open letter.
The concept of being ‘United by Music’ is fine. Embracing togetherness through a universal language like music really does sound great. It arguably is what the world should be. However, as has been noted previously, this idea is dangerously shortsighted. It assumes that a Song Contest, even an immensely popular one, has the power to overcome what divides us. Eurovision has had some faint successes in doing this; the bulk of the 2020 Europe Shine a Light special comes to mind, even if the group performance was not a unification of all the 2020 artists.
The more common result of the EBU’s idealism, however, is that real issues are effectively swept under the rug in the service of manufactured “unity.” For an example of that, one can look no further than the 2024 interval song ‘We Just Love Eurovision Too Much,’ one of the Contest’s many salutes to itself that have ended up less celebratory and more painfully tone deaf.
Idealism is also what leads to half measures and ineffective changes to the Song Contest itself. While the act of promoting disproportionate voting has been banned (and at least one warning has been issued over it), the actual act of disproportionate voting has merely been discouraged.
This is the case despite alarming televote trends in recent years, as was noted in the New York Times earlier this month. In another curious moment during Tuesday’s Semi Final, the hosts opened public voting by noting three major “rules” – you can vote up to ten times, you can’t vote for your own country, and to “spread the love” between multiple songs. The last of those, of course, is not a rule.
Should The Contest Tilt This Windmill?
The ongoing controversies make it clear that no matter what we might be told, the Eurovision Song Contest can not help but depict the world as it actually is. It’s messy and it’s difficult. And that should be okay, life itself is messy and difficult. The EBU’s rejection of reality and unwavering belief in its own importance is where it has fallen short. No one would reasonably argue that it’s Eurovision’s job to overcome the issues facing Europe and the world.
And yet, the current powers that be seem to insist it is.