FRANCE 🇫🇷 Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that France and its capital, Paris are ready to welcome the Eurovision Song Contest and she will bid for hosting the contest in case the country wins the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest.

CHINA 🇨🇳 EBU terminated its collaboration with MANGO TV as the Chinese broadcaster edited the Albanian and Irish entries due to tattoos and LGBT message respectively breaching the European idea of freedom of speech.

NORWAY 🇳🇴 Minister of Culture, Trine Skei Grande said that the government will back up the hosting of Eurovision 2019 if Norway wins on Saturday. At the moment they are focusing on Rybak’s performance non Saturday.

CYPRUS 🇨🇾 Following the CyBC statement that the country is going to welcome the contest fi they win on Saturday and that most likely Lemesos will be the host city, Larnaka Mayor calls for people to watch the show in public view at Finikoudes where a huge screen will be set.

BELGIUM 🇧🇪 In an interview with Songfestival.be, Peter Van de Veire expressed his sentiments on Belgium’s Eurovision Song Contest selection process this year. According to him, an internal selection was the right move because Flemish broadcaster VRT has “consistently failed to deliver results in Eurovision.” While he says it’s not his call, VRT is unlikely to return to a televised preselection format. (Source: http://www.eurrovoix.com)

STREAMS ON SPOTIFY

The Czech Republic, Israel and Cyprus are competing closely in the Spotify charts to be the most listened to song in this years contest so far. Broken down by total streams the top five is as follows: (source: http://www.eurovoix.com)

Cyprus – Eleni Foureria – Fuego – 87,529 streams (9 countries – top 200)
Czech Republic – Mikolas Josef – Lie to Me – 87,192 streams (11 countries – top 200)
Israel – Netta – Toy – 86,348 streams (10 countries – top 200)
Sweden – Benjamin Ingrosso – Dance You Off – 75,402 streams (3 countries – top 200)
Finland – Saara Aalto – Monsters – 32,821 streams (4 countries – top 200)