ESC Insight’s Coverage Of Basel And The Eurovision Song Contest 2025

Following Switzerland’ victory in Malmö, the Eurovision Song Contest returned to the home of the Contest for the third time, this time visiting the Swiss city of Basel. With a mix of Eurovision history and looking to the future, this was a chance for the Song Contest to embrace itself after a stormy 2024 season.

ESC Insight followed the story of the Contest from Nemo’s win right through to JJ lifting the glass microphone trophy.

JJ wins Eurovision 2025, Austria 2025 (photo: Corinne Cumming/EBU)

We’ve gathered together all the links to our articles, podcasts, videos, interviews, and more, on this page. Our story of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 goes like this…

The Guide Book

Our fifteenth guide book to the Eurovision Song Contest once more proved a popular download both in PDF Format and in an Amazon Kindle suitable file format.

Our guide books feature each country performing at that Contest, as well as National Final details and historical results, it provided the popular mix of information and opinion we’re proud of to everyone. It is also a handy reference for those covering the Contests.

Articles, Editorial and Insight around the 69th Contest:

Eurovision Audience Poll

Following its introduction in Liverpool 2023, the Eurovision Audience Poll has become a marquee moment in the Song Contest community. This project gauges the opinion of the general public before each of the three live shows are broadcast to millions around the world. Members from six different Eurovision community sites, ESC Insight, ESCXTRA.com, Eurovoix, That Eurovision Site, and 12 Points From America, collaborated to survey people leaving the arena after seeing the first public rehearsals of the three shows. More details can be found at eurovisionaudiencepoll.com.

FM/AM/SW/DAB Radio Coverage

ESC Insight works year-round with two key radio partners. Radio Six International provides worldwide distribution for our radio packages through online, FM, AM, and Shortwave frequencies to more than twenty stations. In the UK, we work with The Podcast Radio which broadcasts our shows across the country on DAB and online.

ESC Insight makes available a number of worldwide radio syndication packages designed to give the smaller community and local radio stations around the world Eurovision content in the run-up to the live shows. These radio-edited packages are not available online. The 2024 season saw our radio packages broadcast on stations based in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Singapore.

This year ESC Insight offered:

A radio-specific preview package that profiled every song entering this year’s Contest.
A ‘radio-edit’ version of ‘Juke Box Jury.
A discussion show from backstage in the Press Room in the week of the Contest.
Interview packages collated from interviews conducted throughout the year.

Europe’s Heartbeat

We also produce an ‘out of season’ music show. Europe’s Heartbeat (europesheartbeat.com) is a syndicated radio programme broadcasting new music, lost classics, and forgotten hits from across the European continent, including a significant number of Eurovision songs and artists. The show can be heard on stations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Podcasts and Online Audio

ESC Insight’s core product is our audio podcast. This runs throughout the year, fortnightly over the summer months, weekly during the ‘on-season’ period of September-April, and daily when we reach the host city.

For most of the year, it runs as a magazine-style show, with news headlines, short discussions, and musical performances. During the time in Basel, it switched to the discussion panel format, hosted by ESC Insight’s Dude Points, featuring contributors from ESC Insight and other noted Eurovision voices.

The shows are available to stream direct from ESC Insight or via RSS. You can find the show in the major Podcast services such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. We are featured in the key podcast applications… Castbox, iHeart Radio, Overcast, Player FM, PodChaser, and PodHero. You’ll find even more links over at PodNews’ podcast library.

Juke Box Jury

In the seven weeks running up to the Semi Finals and Grand Final, we previewed the year’s Eurovision songs in our Juke Box Jury format, with a discussion between two judges and host Ewan Spence before rating each song as hit, miss, or maybe.

Artist Interviews

We interviewed the 2025 artists during the London and Amsterdam preview parties, collecting these in ‘omnibus’ editors in the days leading up to the Semi Finals and Grand Final.

Chat Over Coffee

Our podcast interview series, Chat Over Coffee, allows us the chance to sit down and explore the Eurovision Song Contest with a single guest for an extended-length show.

Eurovision Wars

During the summer months, ESC Insight debuted the third season of Eurovision Wars, a six-part podcast series investigating how geo-political issues including war, conflict, and dissent play out on the Eurovision stage. This third season focused on political events that played our during 2023 and 2024 and their direct impact on the Song Contest.

The Daily Podcast Shows From Basel

The successful and anticipated daily chat shows were the backbone of the coverage from Basel as the ESC Insight podcast switched to a daily schedule. This allowed us to provide more of our trademark in-depth coverage and analysis from backstage, bringing all the news and opinions of the 2025 Contest as it happened, through a rotating lineup of guests from many Eurovision websites.

Patreon

Launched in 2018, ESC Insight’s community continues to contribute towards the site through small monthly donation. Organised through the popular membership platform Patreon, donations start from as little as $1 a week. Patreon supporters have access to additional editorial posts, informal podcasts talking about breaking news, and standalone podcast series.

Notable content includes early access to our ‘Chat Over Coffee’ interview podcasts, a weekly review of Melodifestivalen, and alternative edits and National Final songs from our ‘Juke Box Jury. Podcasts.

More details can be found at patreon.com/escinsight.

Thank You To Our Supporters

ESC Insight is a year-round operation, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank our supporters from the 2023/2024 season.

Radio Six is a private non-profit radio station operating from Scotland and playing an interesting mixture of songs from the world’s unsigned and indie artists in their native languages. Radio Six supported ESC Insight with radio broadcast and production facilities throughout the year, with a particular focus on broadcasting from JESC and ESC. Find out more at www.radiosix.com
The Podcast Radio showcases fantastic podcasts to the world. From the weirdest to the most wonderful, the biggest and the best, to the unheard gems awaiting your discovery. Broadcasting on DAB radio across the UK and streaming directly from its own website, The Podcast Radio combines live presenters, and hourly news updates, and acts as a constant source of podcast inspiration 24 hours a day. Find out more at www.thepodcastradio.co.uk.

Thank You To Our Readers And Listeners

ESC Insight aims to deliver a unique and thoughtful experience for our readers, and we continue to strive to deliver a unique experience that provides in-depth editorial, discussion, and commentary around the Eurovision Song Contest for our existing readers, and those who have yet to discover us.

Onwards To The Seventieth!

That wraps up the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, and we’re starting to plan our coverage for the 2025/26 season. If you’ve any comments on our coverage, let us know in the comments or get in touch.

ESC Insight Reader Survey