In recent years, the Eurovision Song Contest has continuously expanded.
And since 2016, Logo TV has broadcast the contest in the United States, meaning fans could enjoy the contest there as well.
Unfortunately for them, Logo TV won’t show this year’s contest in Tel Aviv.
While American Eurovision fans were really happy about the decision to broadcast in the US, not too many actually tuned in.
Taking a closer look at the broadcast, a total of 74,000 viewers tuned in for last year’s grand final, up 10k from 2017’s viewing figure.
The decision comes as a big surprise. Just days after official reports that US pop icon Madonna will perform on the Eurovision stage, the only US network airing the contest has now pulled the plug.
Amid mixed fan reaction, Americans at least might have been expected to look forward to seeing the biggest-selling female recording artist ever perform.
However, there might still be hope for our American readers. There’s the possibility that Netflix could indeed be involved with this year’s contest. They’ll be showing the comedy Eurovision starring Will Ferrell very soon, so American Eurofans may not need to give up hope just yet.
As Deadline wrote: “The global SVOD platform is not in the live event business and rarely takes on properties that it can only distribute in the US but picking up Eurovision could get American viewers warmed up for the Will Ferrell movie.”
Will actually met with our editor William in Lisbon and they had a kiki on all things Euro. And while he’s remained tight-lipped about what they discussed, it’s clear something fun is in the pipeline.
While Logo TV had a short history with Eurovision, it was a sweet one. In fact, we spoke to RuPaul’s Drag Race judge and Logo commentator Michelle Visage in 2017.
Drag Race contestant Shangela took over the reigns in 2018, joining Ross Matthews in the commentary box.
What do you think made Logo TV skip this year’s contest? Is there still hope for our American Eurovision fans to watch the show on TV? Let us know in the comments below!
My fellow Americans- you can watch the semis and the final on Swedish SVT (as mentioned before), and also on German broadcaster Das Erste.
It wouldn’t have mattered of Madonna performed or not if they aired in the US- When they broadcast the first year they couldn’t play the Justin Timberlake performance due to rights issues, which would have been just an issue with Madonna.
That actually annoyed me because what was the point of brining in an American music superstar if Americans can’t actually see the performance!
Does this mean…..NO REGION BLOCKING?! Please mean no region blocking! Viacom’s stranglehold on Eurovision was actually killing the community over here. I hope at least the main global feed will be unblocked in time for us all to enjoy.
The geo-block will likely continue because Viacom didn’t have a hand in it, or else countries like Brazil and Canada wouldn’t have their access to the YouTube performances blocked from the get-go.
Yep, the regional blocking was to do with American music licensing, not Viacom’s television broadcast rights. It’s a coincidence that the two things started in around the same time.
Thank goodness. Maybe this means that things will go back to the way things were before Viacom got a hold of it in the United States and performances might not be geoblocked on Youtube.
Just a minor point: as per certified sales and paid sownloads/streaming as opposed to estimates and guesses Madonna is not the best selling solo female singer as Rhianna, Taylor Swift and Mariah Carey are ahead. Not saying their contributions to pop culture all have the same weight but at least those three can sing (moderately well to amazingly) and being much younger I don’t expect Madonna’s current and future songs to pose any threat. Not even to her fortune as she always much more of a businesswoman with an eye for jumping on trends (back in the day) rather than… Read more »
As a US Eurovision Fan, this is not surprising. One thing most people don’t understand about LOGO is that it’s not a standard cable channel on most US networks and usually comes at an additional cost. With the move of Drag Race to VH1, it just gives me even less of a reason to get LOGO, and with the editing they did during the 2016 edition, I’d rather just watch the official livestream via VPN.
Good! I hope this means that it won’t be geoblocked in the US.
I bet its because of the price. EBU charges the US extra dollars to broadcast it and Logo TV is only a cable channel. America’s strong nationalism could also be the reason why views were low…time will tell when ESC will blow up the same way FIFA did there..
I am upset about this? Is there a way to watch it on the Eurovision website or something???? I hope that there is another channel that will broadcast the competition.
Just download a extension called zenmate for google chrome, and change your proxy to germany, and you will be able to watch it live on youtube, I did the same to watch football matches
I am an American eurovision fan and I discovered that the Irish broadcaster, RTE, has an iPlayer that is playable internationally, even in America. That’s how I have been watching eurovision.
SVT and YLE usually have unblocked global feeds that don’t require you to have a VPN to use. I actually prefer SVT and have never watched the Logo broadcast.
Lol, I knew it. I noticed that Logo’s website didn’t exist anymore, and that was a bad sign. See? So few Americans watch Eurovision that the channel providing it decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore! So can Europeans pleeeeeease stop acting like Eurovision is under threat of being destroyed by America? CLEARLY it’s not going to happen because not enough of us even got interested in it when we had the chance to watch it more easily. Eurovision will NEVER have a strong enough influence here for us to significantly influence it in return. Anyway, hopefully my new VPN… Read more »
dotvpn
I tried the VPN route last year…. worked fine getting BBC during the semis and then lagged really bad for the finals. Switching to a proxy server this year.
Well, I have been watching eurovision on the Rte iPlayer anyway so it’s a moot point for me.
Marty Whelan over the Logo staple is def an upgrade.
He’s all right. Admittedly I would love to see the broadcast with graham norton commenting, but if you want to watch a broadcast with English commentary, the irish channel will do.
Bummer. Hope it gets picked up elsewhere. As ever, Canada gets all the nice things.
But will the performances from 2016-2018 finally be un geoblocked! This is honestly the most important thing to me. it’s made me and I’m sure a lot of other Eurovision fans in the US feel isolated and getting to actually view them on YouTube would help bridge the gap.
easyview.eu website
you can get the Uk transmission
I’m actually happy about this news. I hope this means that the live shows and the videos of SF and final performances will no longer be geo blocked in the USA. I’ve been watching Eurovision since 2008. I used to be able to watch the live shows via streaming at Eurovision.tv. But not since 2916! Since Logo’s involvement all of the videos have been geo blocked. So we have not been able to share live performances with friends in the USA – thus decreasing the chance of creating new fans. I had complained about this to Eurovision.tv years ago, and… Read more »
https://easyview.eu/
does this mean the livestream + all the videos of the show this year will FINALLY not be regionlocked out of the us …. fingers crossed, i’m tired of having to VPN whenever I wanna watch any of the 2016-2018 performances 🙁
I hear you. Has using the VPN worked for you? Also I wonder if they can now unblock the live performance videos from 2016- 2018.
It’s worked for me alright for casual rewatching purposes, but my VPN times out after an hour and makes me reconnect so it’s not been great for livestreaming the actual Final at a party! The past years I’ve had to find various workarounds for that…
That would be amazing if they could unblock them! Definitely save me a few dollars :p
Seems like Wiwibloggs is only finding out now that Eurovision is not big in the US… 74k viewers in a country of 350 million people, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Madonna is here to please European viewers (or so they think), not to attract the American ones. She also performs in tons of shows around the world, what she’ll do in Tel Aviv is nothing special for her.
The show was on a niche network with a low ratings threshold. It’s only big hit was RuPaul’s Drag Race and when that one took off, Viacom decided to have it moved to the better-rated VH1. An average of 74k viewers across three hours on a Saturday afternoon seem like a big thing for a channel is now lacking of original content, especially if it was getting year-to-year increases.
Eurovision is just not big in the US regardless of the viewing figures, period. The 74k are a consequence, not a cause. No one here has ever heard of Eurovision, except for a few rare exceptions.
I only found out Eurovision existed because I had European friends who told me about it.
It depends on the market that the channel targets.
Living in Texas, Logo airing it was great for me. But there are backup plans. One I had to use last year since my recording got botched was to watch it via the SVT Swedish app and have it broadcast on my Smart TV. It worked great.
Hello I’m French living in Texas. I’m happy with the news because it means that they will not geoblock and I can use the YouTube from my smart TV to watch all the semi finals and final. I’m thrilled with this news
This really is not a tragedy. Logo absolutely butchered its shot at bringing Eurovision to an American audience. I watched five minutes of the broadcast in 2016 and then immediately got a VPN so I could go back to how things were before Logo got the contest geoblocked.
Viacom didn’t geo-block the contest. Why would they block three countries from watching the livestreams if they only had the rights to air the final in only one market?
Take Viacom/Logo out of the picture, the geo-block would likely persist.
Why would EBU geo block the live streams and the videos of performances only in 3 countries. That doesn’t make since either. There had been no geo blocking before 2016.
It’s a very complex manner, which the EBU explained in a letter they sent to ESCUnited. Here’s a quote of that email: “In regards to your query regarding geoblocking, the Eurovision Song Contest is broadcast to over 45 countries across the world and live streamed to a vast audience via streaming services. However, due to the rights technicalities of producing live events of this nature, unfortunately there are still some countries, including USA, Brazil and Canada to which we are unable to live stream and so it is necessary to geoblock this content. It is important to note that this… Read more »
The Grand Final was blocked by YouTube in the U.S. the first year of Logo’s broadcast, and it was blocked the next 2 years as well. I watched on SVT in 2017 and ’18.
As an American Eurovision fan I have mixed feelings about this. Having an official broadcaster with good commentators (i.e. 2017 and 2018) really made it feel more like a whole Eurovision experience. Ross, Michelle and Shangella also engaged with the viewers live through Twitter as well which was cool. (I like to act like 2016 didn’t happen.) The truth tho Logo TV has essentially become a repeater for TV Land and VH-1 when RuPaul’s Drag Race moved to VH-1. Except for Eurovision in 2018 I don’t recall any new TV series airing on Logo. It is ironic the year with… Read more »
Which quite probably demonstrates how little gravitas Madonna has these days when it comes to the TV entertainment market in the U.S. today. But then again, would they have been allowed to televise Madonna’s performances if they had another year to broadcast the show?
In 1999 was held in israel too, in that year esc was brodcast by a jewish cable tv station, maybe this year too?
Doesn’t the YouTube live stream work in the US?
Before 2016 it did.
WTF? Excuse my French.
When Logo acquired the rights to the ESC, the Grand Final was blocked by YT. I watched the final on Logo in 2016, then got the SVT app in 2017 and watched on their network from my tablet from there on.
Actually this is good news, and I’m thrilled. Logo did a terrible job – poor streaming service, bad commentators, just a clueless approach overall. And by owning the US broadcast rights, they geo-blocked the vast majority of Americans from watching via the Eurovision.tv official stream.
Now we can go back to watching a quality official ESC-tv feed on Youtube. America deserves a broadcast of Eurovision, but Logo did it all wrong.
The geo-block wasn’t limited to the US but also to Canada and Brazil and according to the EBU, record labels were behind the geo-block.
Had Viacom not bought the airing rights to broadcast the final, the geo-block would have still happened anyway.
How do you explain that the 2015 and prior performances and even the entire grand finals were available to view on YouTube without VPN? When Logo (Viacom) decided to air Eurovision, they had exclusive rights to air the show and all artist performances, that is why it was geo-blocked.
Rights issues is a messy thing. The geoblocking was not only stateside but also affected several other countries for which Logo doesn’t have a presence in.
Do you have a source on that, James? I mean I would very much like to know the facts. When I complained to Eurovision.tv, I received a reply explaining that the geo blocking was due to the contract with Viacom.
ESCUnited posted an e-mail sent to them by the EBU in response to their inquiry as to why the show was geo-blocked in the first place. I posted this as a response to another fellow commenter above but here’s the link of that page: https://escunited.com/this-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-logo-deal-the-ebu-responds-to-geoblocked-youtube-content-in-the-united-states/
The answer that the EBU provide ain’t gonna satisfy anyone but one thing’s for sure, there’s a great certainty that the geoblock will continue.
How much do you want to bet they’re going to keep it geoblocked anyway?
I’m sure they’ll keep it geoblocked anyway, because we can’t have nice things.
I have a feeling they will. YT has gone off the rails as of late, with their demonitization sweeps.
That’s a chance to move the contest on a serious network.
PBS?
The contest airs on Saturday daytime in the US, which is not exactly the best place to hold original programming that is not related to sports if monster-sized ratings is what you’re after.
esc in usa is in the afternoon if brodcast live, not evening
I didn’t say it was in the evening when it airs live.
In New York City, it would be 3:00 P.M., and in Los Angeles, noon.
This is bad news I hope Netflix or another station broadcast so it this year because I had a Eurovision party planned for my schools foreign exchange students who watch Eurovision. I wanna watch it on TV this like I have with Logo TV the past couple years and I don’t wanna disappoint the exchange students.
in Usa is not visible Omni tv? a canadian tv who this year brodcast eurovision
Omni is mainly available in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. If you live close to the border with those provinces, there’s a chance you might get it
Areas of the USA that share a border with Canada sometimes have Canadian local stations carried by cable providers. CBC for example is available in areas of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington state, New York, and Vermont. It is possible that some cable providers might carry Omni as well since Omni doesn’t buy rights to American network programming like CTV, Global, City TV and re-air them for Canadian audiences. Border areas in the US can also pick up Omni via antenna if the affiliate’s signal is strong enough.
You could chromecast it to your tv via the webstream. I guess they make that available now that nobody in the usa has the rights to the eurovision broadcast.
In the event EBU doesn’t have an American broadcaster things will most likely go back to pre-2016 where the live streams for the semi-finals and grand final won’t be geo-blocked from the official ESC YouTube channel.
Not exactly. The reasons they were blocked was due to requests by records labels to do so, which coincided with Logo TV’s stateside broadcast of the 2016 final.
The blockade was not limited to the US apparently, as this was also the case in Brazil and Canada.
In Brazil there were a couple of years of geoblocking (the recorded performances are still unavailable). In one of those, even TVE and RTP International couldn’t broadcast for all the continent. But last year YouTube hasn’t been blocked, though in other countries of Latin America it remained to be a problem. Let’s see what will happen next month…
You can try Deutschwelle, RTP International and TVE Internacional if they’re available on your cable. 🙂
I have the SVT app on my tablet. They televise the contest on the app, as well as their Web site. I just hope the U.S. servers don’t try to block it.
Jeff, you should be able to watch via the Eurovision.tv official channel on Youtube. When Logo owned the broadcast rights, the Youtube channel was geo-blocked, but now it should be available to us in the US.
Jeff – see what James said about European channels that broadcast the show in case they’re in your cable package. RTP (Portugal) and TVE (Spain). TO ADD: BBC broadcasts it too, BBC One for sure for the final, I don’t know about BBC America. BBC is in most cable packages in the world. Maybe RTE Ireland?? Maybe the Greek broadcaster? What countries are the students from? Make a list and ask them about the broadcaster in their countries and check out if that channel is in your cable package. The Eurovision channel on youtube have a stream for sure but… Read more »
Una BBC America doesn’t automatically get all the programming that airs on BBC One in the UK. BBC America never aired any Eurovision events in America. Same situation in Canada BBC Canada has never aired an Eurovision event. The BBC Worldwide channels (like BBC America) generally gets the rights to BBC UK shows they distribute themselves. They then acquire other shows from ITV, Channel 4, etc. and in the case of BBC America they also have syndicated programs like Star Trek they air. Where ESC is an EBU event BBC America would have to reach a deal with the EBU… Read more »
Thanks for all the help and suggestions I will definitely try them:)
Also try the SVT app and share it to your smart tv.
I did that in 2017. I put it on my tablet.
Get the SVT app from Swedish Television on AppStore! Then you can stream and override the problem.
The thing I’m afraid of if Netflix picks it up is that the show won’t be put on Netflix until AFTER the contest ends.
And…it won’t be any fun that way because we would already have the winner spoiled for us before we could watch what happened.
https://easyview.eu/
WHAT?!?!?!?!!!! Oh well i couldnt access it anyways i use a UK streaming site to watch the shows.
i have a request, in Usa are still live the cable tv?
What site do you use?
This actually might be amazing news for people who didn’t have logo tv in their tv package and want to follow the show via the internet livestream.
It was broadcast for free on LOGO’s website for all. We didn’t need LOGO’s paid service to watch it.
Aye. In 2016. Then I decided in 2017 to go with SVT and their app.