diff --git a/src/plugins/plugin_misc_groupblog.py b/src/plugins/plugin_misc_groupblog.py
index b7d5636d..8d105262 100755
--- a/src/plugins/plugin_misc_groupblog.py
+++ b/src/plugins/plugin_misc_groupblog.py
@@ -557,7 +557,7 @@ class GroupBlog(object):
             for item in items:
                 entry = item.firstChildElement()
                 removeAllURIs(entry)
-                feed += "    " + entry.toXml().encode('utf-8') + "\n"
+                feed += "    " + entry.toXml() + "\n"
             return feed + "</feed>"
 
         def initialised(result):