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It’s February already – and let’s be honest, by this time last year we had more songs. Everything feels lower-key so far. But that’s not to say there’s not plenty to report. Our weekly round-up is about more than Alexandra Rybak’s socks.
Azerbaijan’s broadcaster İTV has confirmed that its internal selection for Eurovision 2026 has been narrowed to three finalists, following auditions and an internal review process. No artist names have yet been made public.
Bulgaria picked Dara to sing in Vienna. The day after the televised ‘pick a singer’ show, she announced people had been vile online, and she was now reconsidering. Someone had a word, and she’s back on message. Work continues to put together three songs for her to perform on 28 February. The safe money is on the job going to Dimitris Kontopoulos and Fokas Evangelinos.
Croatian broadcaster HRT has confirmed that international juries from San Marino, Luxembourg, Norway and the United Kingdom will take part in the final of Dora 2026.
This year’s song for Cyprus gets its first airing in the first semifinal of Sing for Greece next Friday (13 February). Antigoni will premiere ‘Jalla’ (more).
Czechia and Česká televize has confirmed via its official Eurovision Czechia social accounts that a male solo artist has been internally selected to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in Vienna. They earlier let it be know there were 260 potential songs submitted, so watch this space.
In Estonia, ERR has published the running order for next Saturday’s Eesti Laul 2026 final. You can see who sings when at this website.
In Finland, Yle has confirmed that Sami Sykkö, Jorma Uotinen and Jasmin Beloued will host Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2026.
In Germany, all nine songs competing in Das Deutsche Finale 2026 are now available to hear in full.
Israel’s broadcaster KAN is expected to select Noam Bettan’s Eurovision 2026 song today, with the decision taken by an internal committee, according to KAN journalist Amit Harari. Yuval Raphael is named as one of the songwriters of ‘not a ballad’ – the song will be in Hebrew, French and English. Expect news shortly this evening – along with a promise to share the song in early March… and a whole bunch of petitions vying for your signature to ban Israel from…. yeah, you know how this ends.
The Supernova continues in Latvia, with LSM releasing the running order for the second semifinal. Check it out on Instagram.
Lithuania – LRT has released the songs vying for the third heat of Eurovizja.lt. You can hear them at this website.
More songs from Poland, with full versions of all competing songs for their national final now gathered together by the fabulous esc_discord channel.
In Romania, TVR has published the full list of songs submitted for its Eurovision 2026 selection process. The entries have now been made public via the official Eurovision Romania site, marking the first formal step in Romania’s preselection and allowing fans to see which artists and titles are in contention before any further filtering or broadcast decisions are announced. TVR has just (today) announced the 68 long listed entrants, who get to take part in ‘open workshops’ early next week. The ten semifinalists will be revealed on 12 February.
Because quantity always seems to rule over quality in San Marino, you get 240 songs to choose from for ten places in the grand final of the San Marino Song Contest. There have been open auditions since forever, reducing the list to this – so you can only imagine just how awful the rejects must have been. Dreaming San Marino Song Contest 2026 features eight shows with 30 participants each. Five acts from each show will advance, creating two semi-finals of 20 participants each. Ten go through to the final to compete against ten far more likely-to-win ‘name’ acts.
Serbian broadcaster RTS has released the 24 entries taking part in this year’s Pesma za Evroviziju on its YouTube channel.
Sweden, and it’s Friday, so here’s your chance to preview the six songs competing in the second heat of Melodifestivalen 2026. In other news, the ‘brilliant’ idea of naming the ‘second chance’ qualifier from each heat only online via SVT Play has already been scrapped. Find your way over to SVT Play for rehearsal clips.
Ukraine – UA:PBC has published additional details for Vidbir 2026, including the running order for the final and official song snippets for all competing entries. You can watch online tomorrow with English language commentary by Yuriy Mazur and Natalia Slipenko.
