Ben Smith has been watching the Eurovision Song Contest since 2008, blogging/podcasting about it since 2011, and a part of its digital press center since 2021. He has deep thoughts about the ways improvements in streaming media in the last decade have made the contest more of a truly global event, and can also do a tight five on Norway’s selection process. He lives in Somerville, MA and can be found more generally at goodatinter.net.
Ben Smith has hosted 270 Episodes.
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Episode 148: One More Google
March 15th, 2022 | Season 5 | 45 mins 19 secs
armenia, austria, azerbaijan, belgium, cyprus, georgia, greece, iceland, israel, italy, malta, portugal, sweden, switzerland, united kingdom
In the last week of Eurovision Selection Season, we have a manageable number of internal selections to process and ease into the sunset with chill vibes from three national finals.
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Episode 147: Math
March 8th, 2022 | Season 5 | 40 mins 37 secs
denmark, france, germany, iceland, italy, montenegro, netherlands, portugal, romania, serbia, sweden
Our brains may have turned into soup, but we survived the last overstuffed Saturday of Eurovision Selection Season. Just barely though... we were told there would be no math...
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Episode 146: Україна
March 1st, 2022 | Season 5 | 33 mins 27 secs
australia, finland, france, germany, iceland, italy, netherlands, romania, russia, serbia, sweden, ukraine
We stand with Ukraine.
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Episode 145: Quante voci? In questa economia?
February 22nd, 2022 | Season 5 | 40 mins 51 secs
australia, azerbaijan, croatia, finland, iceland, italy, malta, norway, poland, san marino, slovenia, sweden, ukraine
In the biggest Saturday for Eurovision 2022 selection season, 6 songs were chosen for Turin. We travel to Norway, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, San Marino, and Malta and examine a variety of TV formats along the way.
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Episode 144: HyperRoop
February 15th, 2022 | Season 5 | 38 mins 54 secs
austria, croatia, estonia, italy, latvia, lithuania, malta, norway, poland, romania, slovenia, sweden, ukraine
It was another busy week for Eurovision as Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia made their picks for Turin. We get caught up and look ahead to the next Super Saturday in this week's episode.
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Episode 143: Oops! All Screens!
February 8th, 2022 | Season 5 | 43 mins 11 secs
croatia, denmark, estonia, germany, ireland, israel, italy, latvia, lithuania, north macedonia, norway, romania, san marino, serbia, sweden, ukraine
North Macedonia, Ireland, Israel, and Italy have determined their songs for Turin, and that was only about 1/3 of Eurovision Super Saturday number 1 for the 2022 season. We recap this weekend's non-stop content stream.
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Episode 142: Convoluted
February 1st, 2022 | Season 5 | 28 mins 30 secs
estonia, iceland, ireland, israel, italy, latvia, lithuania, moldova, north macedonia, norway, slovenia, spain, sweden
Moldova made a surprise internal selection and Spain made its Eurovision selection at last week's Benidorm Festival. We discuss these songs and look ahead to the first Super Saturday of 2022!
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Episode 141: Sound of Beauty
January 25th, 2022 | Season 5 | 22 mins 33 secs
italy, lithuania, norway, slovenia, spain
Ben returns with his thoughts about Lithuania's Pabandom is Naujo, Norway's 2022 process, Maneskin's appearance on Saturday Night Live, and a look ahead to EMA and Benidorm.
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Episode 139: Hunker Down
January 11th, 2022 | Season 5 | 17 mins 32 secs
finland, italy, latvia, lithuania, montenegro, norway, poland, romania
This week we meet Montenegro's entrant, travel to Lithuania for Pabandom is Naujo, check out the Eurovision menus in Romania and Latvia (ooo, salad), and see how famous Maneskin's birthdays are.
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Episode 138: Unprecedented
January 4th, 2022 | Season 5 | 25 mins 3 secs
albania, italy, lithuania, montenegro, norway, spain, sweden
It's full steam ahead to Eurovision 2022, with Albania making its (correct?) choice, a wild ESC 250 countdown, and looking forward to selection season series starting Saturday.
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Episode 137: Class of 2021
December 21st, 2021 | Season 5 | 33 mins 5 secs
albania, australia, czech republic, greece, italy, lithuania, netherlands, spain
The Czech Republic has made their selection, a number of processes have released more details, and we check in with the Eurovision Class of 2021.
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Episode 136: Eurovision 101
December 7th, 2021 | Season 5 | 36 mins 40 secs
albania, bulgaria, czech republic, estonia, italy, norway, san marino, slovenia, sweden
With a lot of new folks discovering Eurovision over the past year and selection season 2022 underway, we put together a tutorial to answer the question: How does Eurovision work?