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LAST UPDATE | 3 hrs ago
THE ORGANISERS OF the Eurovision Song Contest will be breathing a sigh of relief tonight after Bulgaria were announced as surprise winners of the competition in Vienna, beating Israel into second place.
Pop star DARA’s nonsense dance anthem, Bangaranga, topped the table with 516 points as the final public votes were announced, finishing well ahead of Israel’s Noam Bettan on 343.
The singer hadn’t featured in the bookies’ top five in advance of this evening’s Grand Final, but proved a hit both with the professional juries and the watching public.
Bettan was in 8th place after the votes of the juries were announced, but leapfrogged over his competitors to the top of the table as the televotes came in, remaining there for around the last 10 minutes of voting.
Bulgaria were returning to the contest this year after four years away. The country has never won the Eurovision before.
Favourites Finland ended up in sixth place when the results were tallied at the end of tonight’s show, with Romania, Australia and Italy rounding out the top five.
The UK’s act, Look Mum No Computer, finished bottom with just a single point.
Votes from the public make up 50% of each act’s total, with the remaining half coming from juries made up of music industry figures in each of the participating countries.
Here’s how the final result was announced:
Here is the moment Bulgaria WON The 70th Eurovision Song Contest with BANGARANGA! 🇧🇬#Eurovision #Eurovision2026 pic.twitter.com/4kG9BmQcSw
— sᴜᴘᴇʀ ᴛᴠ (@superTV247) May 16, 2026
Whichever country wins the Eurovision earns the right to host it the following year.
If Israel had won, it’s likely more countries would have joined the boycott of the contest, leaving a massive hole in the budget available to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which runs the show.
Broadcasters from Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands did not take part this year due to the continued presence of Israel.
Already this evening the Belgian broadcaster that had been due to send an act next year, VRT, has raised doubts over whether they’ll do so.
Meanwhile Spain’s RTVE posted a message on social media saying, “The Eurovision Song Contest is a competition, but human rights are not. There is no room for indifference. Peace and Justice for Palestine.”
Ante la celebración de la final del festival de Eurovisión esta noche, RTVE recuerda que ha decidido no participar en esta edición del certamen.
— RTVE (@rtve) May 16, 2026
El festival de Eurovisión es un concurso, pero los derechos humanos no lo son. No hay espacio para la indiferencia. Paz y Justicia… pic.twitter.com/PiCc70cINx
Over 2,000 people took part in a pro-Palestine march in the city this afternoon and 14 protesters were arrested at a train station beside the arena earlier tonight.
Further protest had been expected during the Israeli performance this evening after chants of ‘stop the genocide’ could be heard during Tuesday’s semi-final.
No audible booing could be heard in the broadcast as the performance took place. Commentating for the BBC, Graham Norton noted as the song started that there was “a slightly mixed reception in the hall … I’m not sure what we’re hearing”.
There was some booing picked up later in the show as Israel’s televote tally was read out by presenters Victoria Swarovski and Michael Ostrowski.
The reaction to Israel in the arena is very clear. It even made Graham Norton trip up 😳 #Eurovision pic.twitter.com/heP8F7TffV
— sᴜᴘᴇʀ ᴛᴠ (@superTV247) May 16, 2026
It’s likely there’ll be further calls for reforms of the contest after a similar scenario played out during the voting section last year in Basel, leading to a number of broadcasters raising questions over the process.
It emerged in the wake of the 2025 contest that an agency of the Israeli government had deployed social media advertising and used state social media accounts to encourage voting for the act.
New reporting from the New York Times, published last weekend, showed Israel’s efforts to rally supporters behind its Eurovision act were broader and started earlier than previously thought, and detailed how the Netanyahu government targeted the contest as a “soft power tool” amid its war on Gaza.
Israeli broadcaster Kan received a warning from the EBU last weekend after Bettan appeared in social media posts that encouraged viewers to vote for his song, Michelle, 10 times.
There has been no sign, however, of the same sort of coordinated state-backed vote-getting campaign witnessed last year.
However, as pollster Kevin Cunningham of Ireland Thinks explained to The Journal earlier this week, in a field with multiple options, those with more motivation or more interest in a particular result can have an oversize influence.
“In an election, if turnout is low your differential turnout, as it is called, often has a bigger influence. Like if turnout is 20% of the population, or 10% … the smaller it gets, the more skewed it gets.”
This impact is particularly noticeable in a contest like Eurovision, Cunningham said, where only a small subset of those actually viewing go as far as to pick up their phone to cast a single vote, let alone multiple votes
Being allowed to vote multiple times accentuates the result of the contest, Cunningham said, “to a massive degree”.
Next year’s contest is likely to be staged in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, according to Director-General of Bulgarian National Television (BNT) Milena Milotinova.
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