An average of 409,000 viewers watched the Grand Final of Festival da Canção 2026 live on RTP 1 last Saturday night.
An average of 409,000 viewers watched the show, registering a decrease of 41,000 viewers compared to the Grand Final of the festival in 2025, and of 3,000 viewers compared to the second semi-final of this year’s edition. In addition, the show had a rating of 4.1 and an average share of 10.4%, also a drop of 1% compared to last year’s figures. The peak audience was during the results at around 00:28 local time, with a share of 16.1%.
After a record of 912,000 viewers in 2018, Festival da Canção has been losing viewers for a number of years. The past four editions of the final have seen the number of viewers watching live on RTP 1 fall, in 2024 for the first time under half a million spectators.
The results were decided by seven regional juries (50%) and public voting (50%). The results were as follows:
| Running order | Artist | Song | Jury points | Televote points | Result |
| 1 | Bandidos do Cante | “Rosa” | 10 | 12 | 22 points – 1st place |
| 2 | João Ribeiro | “Canção do querer” | 12 | 2 | 14 points – 4th place |
| 3 | André Amaro | “Dá-me a tua mão” | 1 | 7 | 8 points – 7th place |
| 4 | Gonçalo Gomes | “Doce ilusão” | 4 | 3 | 7 points – 9th place |
| 5 | Marquise | “Chuva” | 3 | 5 | 8 points – 8th place |
| 6 | Evaya | “Sprint” | 2 | 1 | 3 points – 10th place |
| 7 | Sandrino | “Disposto a tudo” | 7 | 6 | 13 points – 5th place |
| 8 | Nunca Mates o Mandarim | “Fumo” | 8 | 8 | 16 points – 3rd place |
| 9 | Silvana Peres | “Não tem fim” | 5 | 4 | 9 points – 6th place |
| 10 | Dinis Mota | “Jurei” | 6 | 10 | 16 points – 2nd place |
Bandidos do Cante resulted as the overall winner of the festival, placing second with the jury vote and topping the televote and earning the right to represent Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. They will perform during the first half of the first semi-final on May 12.
Source: ESC Portugal
Portugal debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964, represented by António Calvário. The country finished last, scoring nul points. Before 2017, Portugal’s best result was 6th place, which came in 1996 when Lúcia Moniz performed “O meu coração não tem cor” in Oslo. In 2017, Salvador Sobral took home the crystal microphone with his song “Amar pelos dois”, ending a 53-year wait for a Portuguese win. The 2018 contest was held in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon for the first time.
