VIENNA HAS BEEN chosen as the host city for next year’s Eurovision in May 2026.

Austrian entry JJ won this year’s competition, held in Basel in Switzerland, with his song “Wasted Love”, making Austria the host of the 2026 competition.

Two cities – Vienna and Innsbruck – were the main contenders to provide the venue for the song contest.

Austria’s public broadcaster ORF has announced that Vienna, which previously hosted the contest in 1967 and 2015, clinched the host role.

It will be held at Wiener Stadthalle, Austria’s largest indoor arena, with semi-finals on 12 and 14 May and the final following on 16 May.

The arena opened in 1958 and has seated capacity for 16,000 people in its main hall.

Eurovision has been mired in controversies in recent years surrounding the welfare of contestants and its continued permittance for Israel to participate even as it creates mass devastation for Palestinians as it bombards Gaza. 

Shortly after his win, JJ said he hoped Israel would not participate in the 2026 competition.

He also called for “greater transparency” regarding the televoting part of the scoring process, saying that “everything was very strange about it” after Israel dominated the public vote.

His comments received criticism in Austria, where sentiment leans in support of Israel, and he later walked back some of his remarks, saying he was “sorry if his comments had been misinterpreted”.

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The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced in June that Martin Österdahl, the executive supervisor of Eurovision, would be stepping down this summer.

Österdahl bore the brunt of criticism for the controversies that plagued the competition in Malmö the previous year.

After questions around whether Israel may have had undue influence over the televoting results, Eurovision director Martin Green said that the EBU will “look at the promotion of acts by their delegations and associated parties” to ensure “such promotion is not disproportionally affecting” audience votes.

Additional reporting by AFP