The Internationalist Eurovision Blog

Hello all! So as promised, today we're going to be having a look at the favourites and looking at what a win would mean to them as a country, for their Eurovision futures and for the singer themselves. Israel Israel have won Eurovision three times but only hosted it twice (in 1979 and 1999) after they opted not to host it again when they won on home soil in 1979. To be honest, after our fears at the end of the 2017 contest that Israel would compete at all this year after the main national broadcaster went bust, it is amazing to not only see them back but leading the pack in the betting odds. A win for Israel would be massive! After a run of not making it to the final in the early 2010s, 2015's 'Golden Boy' sent them back to the top 10 and they have become regular qualifiers since. Netta's 'Toy' is almost certain to reach the top 10 but a win would definitely not be a surprise. Whether Netta will have much of a career beyond the contest is anybody's

Greetings from the void that is the week between the 43 songs being confirmed and the pre-parties kicking off next week (I think Riga has one coming up very soon). Anyway, it is only a matter of time before the running order gets announced. I am actually a big fan of a producer-led running order because it allows the best to come out of the show more than a random draw does. We have little idea what the running order will be except for the information of who will be in the first and second halves of each semi. With this in mind, I am throwing my hat into the ring in trying to predict the running order and to explain my thinking. Semi Final 1 1. Czech Republic 2. Iceland 3. Israel 4. Belarus 5. Estonia 6. Belgium 7. Albania 8. Bulgaria 9. Azerbaijan 10. Lithuania 11. Finland 12. Armenia 13. Croatia 14. Switzerland 15. Greece 16. Austria 17. Ireland 18. FYR Macedonia 19. Cyprus The Czech Republic would be the perfect song to kick off the 2018 festivities. The son

And here we are! For any Eurovision fans who have listened to all 43 Eurovision songs, we have now heard the winner! Whilst the road to Lisbon via the pre-parties now begins for our acts and the broadcasters begin working out the stage show logistics (unless you're Sweden), we as fans now have the chance to reflect on our acts and make some initial calls. I plan on doing plenty of posts previewing our 2018 spectacle in the run up to the first semi on May 8, but the first one is a straight up how well which each act do based on nothing except what we have seen in national final season and heard in each song. Semi Final 1 Predicted Qualifiers Israel Estonia Czech Republic Bulgaria Finland Belgium Lithuania Cyprus Azerbaijan FYR Macedonia Everybody thought that Semi Final 2 would be the bloodbath after this draw, but I still think there's going to be a battle for final slots. This is mainly because I can't see any reality in which the first six songs on this lis

And so, we have finally come to the end of the National Finals road! We've had some good times, some bad times, some sad times and some downright weird times (Kamil Show, we're looking at you). As of today however, we are now a week away from the EBU-set deadline for countries to release their song for the contest. We have a bunch of internal selection reveals set to take place this week (as in most of the internal selection songs) and the dropping of some new mixes of previous national final winning songs (namely the United Kingdom, Spain & Moldova). For now though, we look ahead our final three national finals. Lithuania To this day, I find the way that Lithuania select their Eurovision entry to be the most baffling and bizarre of any country I know. Yet at the same time, it has proven results with the 2015 entry being my personal favourite of that year and the 2016 entry storming the televote in Stockholm. Last year was a bit of a blip but in Ieva Zasimauskaite's