Spoiler alert: Australia is going home early from the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest.
Australia’s representative Go-Jo performed his entry “Milkshake Man” on the second semi-final Friday morning AEST in Basel, Switzerland, but it wasn’t enough to shake up the order.
After viewers from across Europe cast their votes, 10 countries went through to the grand final. Australia was one of six countries eliminated, along with Montenegro, Ireland, Georgia, Czechia and Serbia.
It’s the second consecutive year that Australia has been dumped at the semis. Electric Fields also failed to crack the final in 2024.
Australia has competed at Eurovision each year since making its debut at the 2015 contest with “Tonight Again”, performed by Guy Sebastian. The previous year, Jessica Mauboy performed “Sea of Flags”, although the song was not part of the official competition. Mauboy returned in 2018 as a bonafide contestant with “We Got Love”, finishing 20th.
In the past decade, Australia has finished in the top 10 on five occasions, including a best performance from Dami Im, whose “Sound of Silence” was runner-up in the 2016 competition.
Forget for a moment the kitsch and confetti. Eurovision was established almost 70 years ago with the wholesome intentions of bringing the people of Europe together, through song.
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European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of public service broadcasters, created the annual song contest back in 1956 to foster closer ties after the horrors of World War II.
SBS has beamed Eurovision into Australian homes every year since 1983. The public broadcaster has done such a fine job, the EBU and Austrian host broadcaster ORF granted a permit for SBS as an Australian entry to commemorate the 60th annual contest, and the fun times have rolled on ever since.
With the completion of the second semi final, the 26 finalists for Eurovision 2025 can be revealed. They are Iceland, Poland, Estonia, Ukraine, Sweden, Portugal, Norway, San Marino, Albania, and the Netherlands, from the first semi, plus Lithuania, Israel, Armenia, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Latvia, Malta and Greece from the second.
They join the “big five” of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, all of whom automatically qualify, per EBU rules, in addition to host country Switzerland.
The Eurovision 2025 grand final airs Sunday May 18th at 5am AEST on SBS and SBS On Demand.
