Last night, we saw a spectacular final of France’s Destination Eurovision which saw Bilal Hassani taking the crown with his song, Roi. We look forward to seeing him in Tel Aviv in May, as do the 2.14 million viewers who tuned in to the Destination Eurovision final to see him win!
Breaking records
With 2.14 million people watching the show live on France 2 last night, this is the largest number of viewers for a Eurovision national final that France has ever had. After a disappointing number of viewers in last week’s second semifinal, the show bounced back with an 11.7% share of the viewers. This means that 11.7% of TV viewers at that time saw all but the last 30 seconds of the winner’s reprise, as France 2 decided to cut the feed from the studio before the song had ended…
Bilal’s victory
Bilal Hassani won last night’s Destination Eurovision 2019 final and will therefore represent France in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with his song, Roi. He was decided to be the winner by a 50/50 combination of public televote and international jury.
The international juries points were announced first, and after a rather lengthy voting procedure (mostly due to the spokespersons from the different countries giving Oscar-worthy speeches), Bilal was left in a somewhat disappointing 5th place with 50 points, whereas Seemone was topping the leaderboard with 94 points, 18 points more than 2nd place, Silvàn Areg.
However, when the televotes started to come in, it became clear that Bilal had won the public vote. It was still a huge shock when it was revealed just how much he had landslided the vote though – he won 150 of the public’s points, 87 more points than the public’s second place, Chimène Badi!
This led to Bilal taking the lead with a total of 200 points, whereas Seemone slipped down into second with 156 points after coming 3rd with the French public.
What do you think of this? Did you expect to see such a high viewing share from France? Will Bilal do well in Tel Aviv? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and on social media @ESCXTRA
