“Wasted love” wasn’t a wasted opportunity
On Saturday night 26 countries took part in the Grand Final of the world’s largest televised live music event, Eurovision Song Contest, hosted by Switzerland at the St. Jakobshalle in the town of Basel this year. The final show had 10 qualifiers from the first Semi-Final and 10 from the second Semi-Final, plus the host country and “the Big 5” automatic qualifiers.
Austria’s JJ has won the 69th edition of the contest with his emotional track ‘Wasted Love’. This is Austria’s first victory since 2014, when Conchita Wurst snatched the fragile glass trophy with ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’. Overall, it’s the third victory for the country in the Eurovision history.
More: EUROVISION 2025 kick off with shock qualifiers: these 10 countries qualified for Grand Final
An estimated 160 million people have watched this year’s contest, broadcast live across all 37 participating countries, as well as online on the official YouTube channel of Eurovision. While the actual venue, St. Jakobshalle, fit a modest crowd of 6,500 people during the Grand Final, another place to experience the finale was Arena Plus, fitting around 36,000 Eurovision fans in Switzerland’s largest football stadium!
The winner scored 436 points, with Israel coming second with 357 points and Estonia third with 356 points. This Eurovision Grand Final had a couple of nil pointers, when it came to the results announcement. Iceland’s VAEB got zero jury love, while UK’s Remember Monday and Switzerland’s artist Zoë Më received a harsh nil from the public. The last discrepancy was particularly noticeable as the Swiss singer came in the honourable second place with the jurors.
More: Artist Factfile: JJ – Austria – Eurovision 2025
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Featured photo: Corinne Cumming / EBU
