Overview
- Israel’s Noam Bettan qualified from the first semifinal in Vienna, where parts of the crowd shouted “Stop the genocide” during his performance.
- The European Broadcasting Union issued a formal warning to Israel’s broadcaster KAN over a multilingual video that urged fans to use all ten available votes for Israel, and the video was removed.
- Organizers tightened voting for 2026 by capping votes at 10 per device and restoring professional juries in the semifinals, while viewers in non‑participating countries watch on YouTube and vote through esc.vote as a single combined bloc.
- Five public broadcasters withdrew over Israel’s participation — Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia — leaving 35 countries in the contest and leading some networks, including Spain’s RTVE, to forgo airing the shows.
- Media scrutiny of last year’s televote intensified as The New York Times and the BBC flagged unusual patterns favoring Israel, which the festival’s director disputed, and Spain’s RTVE chief urged a course correction.