🇪🇸 Blanca Paloma wins Benidorm Fest and will represent Spain at Eurovision 2023

Tonight, Spain finished its search for Chanel’s successor as the final of Benidorm Fest 2023 took place. After a thrilling show, Blanca Paloma won the selection. As a result, they will represent Spain at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest.

These were the results for the final of Benidorm Fest 2023…

The acts who competed tonight’s Final and the results are as follows:

Running Order	Artist	Entry	Jury Vote	Demiscopic Vote	Televote	Total	Result
1	Karmento	“Quiero y duelo”	35	20	25	80	6th
2	Megara	“Arcadia”	50	28	28	106	4th
3	Alice Wonder	“Yo quisiera”	53	16	20	89	5th
4	Fusa Nocta	“Mi família”	24	25	22	71	8th
5	Agoney	“Quiero arder”	80	30	35	145	4th
6	Blanca Paloma	“Eaea”	94	35	40	169	1st
7	José Otero	“Inviernos en Marte”	37	22	16	75	7th
8	Vicco	“Nochentera”	59	40	30	129	3rd

If you want to know more about some of the acts who participated tonight, check out our interviews with Alice Wonder, Fusa Nocta and Karmento. Additionally, we also had a chance to chat to semi-finalists Alfred García, E’FEMME, Rakky Ripper, Siderland and Sofía Martín.

What Is Benidorm Fest

Following a decade and a half interval, Spain’s national broadcaster RTVE revived the Benidorm International Song Festival, and transformed into Spain’s selection show for Eurovision. This is not the first time RTVE has experimented with pre-existing formats to select it’s Eurovision entrants; having previously intermittently used Operación Triunfo. Though this time was to much greater success, as inaugural winner Chanel ultimately finished third at last year’s contest in Turin. The second edition is being hosted by Inés Hernand, Mónica Naranjo, and Rodrigo Vázquez.

Voting in Benidorm Fest consists of a hybrid system, with three voting methods: jury, demiscopic, and televote. the jury consists of music professions ranking the competitors, and makes up 50% of the vote. The demiscopic vote is a weighted system meant to balance the vote based on the demographic make up of Spain, and makes up 25% of the vote. The final 25% of the vote consists of simple televote.

Spain’s Eurovision Journey

Spain debuted at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 with Conchita Bautista’s “Estando Contigo”. The country earned its first win in 1968 with Massiel’s “La La La”, and won again in 1969 with Salome’s “Vivo Cantando” in an infamous four-way tie. Although they have yet to win again, Spain earned several 2nd place finishes, most famously with Mocedades’ “Eres tu” in 1973 and Anabel Conde’s “Vuelve conmigo” in 1996. Spain has been less successful in recent years. Although they achieved two 10th place finishes in 2012 and 2014, the country has not finished above 20th place since 2015, including one last-place in 2017. This poor running streak was broken, however in 2022, when Chanel finished in 3rd place with 459 points from the jury and televoters with her song “SloMo”.

What did you think tonight’s show? Are you happy with that Blanca Paloma will represent Spain? Where does the song fall in your rankings? As always, let us know what you think by commenting below. Also, be sure to follow “That Eurovision Site” on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok as we gear up for Eurovision 2023!

News Source: RTVE

Photo Credit: RTVE