The first details of the Finnish broadcaster’s coverage of the 70th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest have been released.
Yle will once again be airing the Eurovision Song Contest in multiple languages, enabling viewers across Finland to follow the 70th edition of the competition live from Vienna, Austria. Before each of the three live shows, there will be a preview show, ‘ESC26 Etkot’ hosted by Jasmin Belouedin, building up to the contest live from Vienna.
Commentary of the contest in Vienna will be provided in Swedish, Finnish, Ukrainian and Russian. Mikko Silvennoinen returns for his tenth time as Yle’s Finnish language commentator. He confirmed to MTV that he will be commentating from Helsinki, but will be in Vienna for the Opening Ceremony. Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos return for their fifteenth contest. Levan Tvaltvadze returns as the Russian language commentator on Yle Areena, while Galyna Sergeyeva is back providing Ukrainian language coverage.
Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen were selected to represent Finland at Eurovision 2026 after winning UMK 2026. They won both the jury and public votes, and broke the record for the highest score ever received from the public vote and overall. They will perform seventh in Semi-Final One on May 12. Find out more about the Finnish representatives below:
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest+
Finland first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961. They debuted alongside Spain and Yugoslavia. Finland has finished last in the contest on 10 occasions and has received ‘nul points’ three times. It wasn’t until 2006 that Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest. Lordi represented the country in Athens with the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” scoring 292 points, a record total at the time.