Weaver's Week 2026-08-23

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Just the news this week, while we wait for The Chase Across Europe to finish. C'way Shaun and Paul! Go go go Jenny and Darragh! What, we're not meant to be cheering for the Chasers? Oh.

Eurovision Song Contest has given us a little flurry of news. BNT were first out of the blocks, with a location to find. Next year's Senior contest will be held in … excuse us? Oh, it'll be held in Burgas, pronounced BURG-ash. It's a coastal resort on the Black Sea with a large concert hall, a bit like other broadcasters holding Eurovision in Malmö or Liverpool.

The EBU, which organises Eurovision activities in general and the Song Contest in particular, has approved a new rule. Broadcasters in an area at war, or subject to significant internal disturbance, will not be approved to host the contest. This is widely seen as a suggestion that KAN would not be permitted to organise a contest in Israel while the country's armed forces are engaged in active combat.

Another rule change raises the minimum age to perform from 16 to 18; the maximum age for Junior Eurovision remains 15, so there's quite a large gap during which people will not be able to take to the Eurovision stage.

The organisers have also floated a change to the televote structure, forcing people to vote for their favourite three (or so) entries. If adopted, this should make it much more difficult to cast block votes for one entry. The aim is to ensure the result, from top to bottom, is a more accurate representation of the public taste within the EBU. This column believes the current televote is broken, produces unrepresentative results, and makes us think the contest is incompetent.

This column notes how Junior Eurovision does something similar but subtly different, all the votes are put into one common pot and effectively give the televote the power of about five expert juries; the public can attempt to veto a jury favourite, but – as we saw in 2024 – a sufficiently popular jury favourite will win through. If we understand the rumours and tea-leaves correctly, votes at Senior will be attributed to their sponsoring EBU broadcaster, thus giving the public roughly equal power to the professionals.

Viewers to the BBC will be surprised to learn that the Senior Eurovision Song Contest is a sponsored event, brought in association with various commercial partners. The lead advertiser, hair product Moroccanoil, has had an advert immediately before the show, extolling its benefits to 110 million viewers. But no longer; the company have chosen to end their contract with the EBU, and the lead sponsor's package is again available to buy.

We expect to look again at Eurovision at the end of October, when Junior Eurovision takes over Malta.

Mastermind went to Donald Campbell, who took the Films of Paul Newman as his specialist subject. Ten in each round, and passing the winning post with the Paul Daniels trilogy of really great game shows. He finished one point (and quite a few passes) ahead of Fernanda Partridge (Iron Maiden). The other contenders were James Clayton (Hergé's Adventures of Tintin) and Emily Medhurst, who was answering questions on Transport for London moquette, and at one point faced a question on the pattern she was wearing.

Only Connect featured the Knitwits, who are fans of knitting; sadly for the night's costume jokes, they're consumers and not producers. Anyway, the Knitwits beat the tax accountants Accrual World 26-22. The accountants were five ahead after Connections, spotting lightning bolts in popular culture and fruity terms for lots of points. Honours even in Sequences, where nobody could remember the I of PEGI ratings on video games. A revised Best Exotic Marigold Hotel sequence featured new celebrity Joe Exotic; when the sequence appeared some years ago, they had to put up exotic fruits. Accrual World dropped points on their wall, and were overtaken by a blistering performance in Missing Vowels.

Bath booked their place in the University Challenge knockout round, beating City St George's by 215-50. City St George's is a new institution, formed by the merger of journalism college City University with the medical facility St George's. Not that any of this proved helpful: the team were soundly beaten on the buzzers, incurred penalties when they did get in, and talked themselves out of many good answers.

Bath were led by captain William Turner, seven starters gave him a personal total of 101 points. Hot and cold on the bonuses, four all-right sets, five where they just got the one, for a bonus rate of 61%; the overall rate was 58%, and both are unremarkable for this still-young series. Bath were strong on Entertainment, Literature, and Social Sciences; they didn't face enough science questions for us to take a view. Indeed, they didn't face many questions at all, just 66 questions across the match, significantly below last series' average of 74.

Some things we learned from quizzes this week.

• Which politician featured in the cover artwork for some Iron Maiden singles? Of course, it's celebrity quiz answer Margaret Thatcher.
• Iron Maiden once played a small tour under the pseudonym Charlotte and the Harlots.
• Tinsley Green near Crawley is the home of the world marbles championship. The event takes place on Good Friday every year, and will doubtless be subject to a ferocious bidding war for the television rights.
• "A pluviometer is used to measure what meteorological phenomenon?" Good grief, difficult question. Mermaid hair?
• The river in St Petersburg is the Neva, not to be confused with the evil baddie in Raven.
• The original "filibuster" was a pirate; it's since become a term for gratuitous attempts to prolong a speech (as in, Gyles Brandreth spoke on teddy bears to filibuster on Just a Minute).
• "Toxteth O'Grady" "That is never the answer," exclaimed Rajan. Pish and piffle. "Said by the Daily Mirror Book of Facts to have generated the stickiest bogey in the world, and to have shoved six hundred and four marshmallows up one nostril, which American character is mentioned when Neil and Vyvyan are revising in The Young Ones episode 'Bambi'?"
• How did the "Belisha beacon" get its name? The way it glows like a beacon. Mastermind 1977 offered some very loose questions.
• Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz offered a very strong case for renaming Belfast International Airport after Dr. Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the discoverer of pulsar stars, and whose Nobel prize was somehow awarded to some blokes.

Good to hear Joel Dommett sitting in for Vernon Kay on Radio 2. Turns out that the Survivor host is already a talented radio broadcaster, a great raconteur who we could hear more of – certainly better than the eedjit following him. Must be all the experience in television light entertainment. Will Joel take the station's vacant drivetime spot? We doubt it, but he'd be very welcome if that's what he wants.

Another of Joel's job is as host of the ITV Television Awards, this year's ceremony is scheduled for 8 September. It's the award decided by public vote, from exhaustively long longlists. These are the game shows and people in the final fives:

• Reality competition: I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, I'm a Celebrity South Africa, Race Across the World, The Celebrity Traitors, The Traitors
• Quiz show: Limitless Win, The Wheel, House of Games (3), The 1% Club, The Chase
• TV presenter: Alison Hammond, Ant and Dec, Claudia Winkleman, David Attenborough, Stacey Solomon
• Entertainment: Gladiators, Michael McIntyre's Big Show, The Graham Norton Show, The Masked Singer, Would I Lie to You?
• Talent Show: Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, Bake Off, Celebrity Bake Off, Pottery Throw Down

Just one new show of note this week, BBC The Voice of Holland of These Islands starts a new series (ITV network, Sat). One series ends, The Piano finds its top performer (C4, Sun).

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