Earlier this week the European Broadcasting Union revealed the viewing figures for Eurovision 2022: A total of 161 million television viewers watched this year’s song contest. This does not mean that 161 million people watched the grand final, but rather that 161 million folks tuned in to at least some of the three live shows.
The figure represents a drop of 22 million reported TV viewers from Eurovision 2021, when the EBU said that 183 million viewers watched the 2021 edition in Rotterdam.
This year’s figure come from 34 markets, whereas the last year’s figures came from 36 markets. Russia and Ukraine are not included in this year’s measurement. As the EBU explains:
“Russia, who were excluded from the competition in February, and Ukraine are not included in 2022’s figures which accounts for the overall drop from 183m reach in 2021. Ukraine was not measured this year.”
“In 2021 together these two markets accounted for 29 million people reached, excluding these markets from the 2021 data shows that 2022 reach is up 7 million on 2021 in a comparable number of countries.”
The rise in seven million, however, won’t make up for the long-term hit in viewership taken by Russia’s exclusion. Russia has 146 million people, making it the largest country to compete at Eurovision in recent years. Germany, the second-biggest, has 84 million people.
With Russia barred and television viewing becoming less popular with the contest’s core audience, it seems highly unlikely Eurovision will return to the viewership heights of 2016 — when the EBU proudly revealed that the song contest had reached 204 million people (across 40 reported markets that year). It’s been on a downward trajectory since then. The ratings dropped to 182 million when Russia withdrew from the Kyiv-hosted edition of 2017. Despite their return a year later, the ratings haven’t picked up.
In total, the Eurovision Song Contest reported 43 million fewer viewers between the 2016 high and 2022. That’s a dip of around 21%.
Eurovision 2022: Ratings success in the UK, Spain and Italy
Hey, ho. The overall drop in TV viewership shouldn’t obscure gains and achievements elsewhere.
According to the available viewing figures, the United Kingdom was the leading market in terms of overall viewers for Eurovision 2022. A total of 8.9 million Brits tuned in to see Sam Ryder finish second. That’s up 20% on last year.
Meanwhile, in Spain, viewership soared to 6.8 million as viewers joined the Chanel hype train. That marks Spain’s highest viewership since 2008. Understandably, host country Italy achieved its best Eurovision ratings in about thirty years.
In general, ratings and market shares remained stable across western Europe with the exception of non-qualifier Denmark and underperforming France. In the Netherlands, an average audience of above 3 million watched live at home, while in Norway, the contest enjoyed an 89% market share. Get those viewers a banana!
Eurovision loses viewers in parts of central and eastern Europe
In terms of viewership, things look less rosy in parts of central and eastern Europe.
Russia’s (rightful) exclusion means the contest has lost its biggest TV market. But even before Russia’s goodbye, the country was already demonstrating a reduced interest in the contest. While Eurovision could count on a market share of around 30 to 40% in the mid-2010s, by 2020, this had already dropped to 23%. And let’s not forget that Belarus rightly got the boot ahead of Eurovision 2021, reducing numbers further still.
The glowing ratings report from the EBU didn’t mention some other notable declines. The Czech Republic is the prime example. Only 137,000 people watched the contest this year, representing a decline of 25% compared to last year. It’s a sad figure for a country of 10 million people. Austria, meanwhile, recorded its worst rating in almost a decade.
Nevertheless, Poland and Romania reported a large increase in TV viewership after their own contestants made it through to the Grand Final for the first time in several years. It’s welcome news in Romania, where the broadcaster has been posting record-low interest among audiences in recent years.
Do you think that Eurovision can ever crack 200 million TV viewers again? What can be done in markets like Czech Republic and Austria to get people excited? Let us know in the comments box below.
I mean you had no russia, Belarus and significant parts of Ukraine under war. I think that rating’s pretty strong.
Plus how many people watch online, im in the UK and i stream SVT
I know at least a few dozens of people who skipped Eurovision 2022 because, and I quote them, “What’s the point? Winners are already decided”. Just a penny for your thought that the drop in audience can have more reasons besides Russian and Ukrainian markets not being included.
You took the words out of my mouth. I know a lot of people too who didn’t bother to watch the show this year because in their opinion the winner is allready decided.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the reading’s dropped because Russia has been excluded and that’s a huge viewer market.
Speaking of Russia, it is now official that they have been suspended from the EBU indefinitely
I think Eurovision is such an establishment that i doubt the viewerships are of any concern. However, there are trends that in the long run can hurt the contest. Not only because of the general downwards trajectory of public broadcasters, but because broadcasters are not updating enough to the generational change of the competition. The wacky campy entries are not the norm anymore, and broadcasters are doing a much better job at choosing performers (S10, Måneskin, Eleni Foureira, Gjon Tears, Mahmood). They bring acts that better represent the European song industry, and unfortunately commenters don’t look far beyond the comedy… Read more »
2023 the contest will not be held in Switzerland. It will be held in Ukraine.
I’m afraid there’s approximately 0% chance for that. Even if the invasion ended today, the destructions and continued threat from political instability would make it impossible anyways.
our minister said it will be in Ukraine 100%
The prime minister doesn’t get to decide, the EBU does.
Lol oke 🙂 Speaking of delusions)
I feel like the EBU should also take into account online viewers. I personally have stopped watching the contest on TV and started watching it on their YouTube channel. Okay, so I live in Australia and don’t want to get up at 4am to watch it live, but am happy to wait until 8-9am when they put the stream on their Youtube, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people have switched to watching it that way. With my Youtube membership there are no ads, and you get to see more of the interval acts that are cut… Read more »
SBS cut out the interval acts?
I still can’t believe that a mediocre song came second, and I actually come from the UK. Yes, vocals and staging did elevate it somewhat……but second ????
Hopefully we get to host it next year…..maybe the only chance I get to see it live.
maybe the song is not something very special but Sam made it really cool, his performance, his singing and genuine attitude made people in love with it, Sam made Spaceman a great entry, of course the staging and perfect vocal helped a lot same goes to Chanel entry, Slo-mo it’s just another pop dance song that we heard million times before, but Chanel made it epic, this is an examples how amazing artists can do wonders to average (musically wise) songs so I think they deserved their high places, i love the winner too (absolutely deserved in all meanings) and… Read more »
I understand my opinion is not widely shared (if Spaceman reached the second spot, it was very much liked), but i agree the second place is a stretch.
Re-watching the performances, Chanel ate the stage up in Turin. I think we lost a chance to provide more visibility to a well-rounded artist, and i doubt we will see a character like her any time soon.
Still, congrats to her for her top 3, and congrats to Sam. Hopefully, the UK will taking the contest as a joke, considering the pool of artists they can draw from.
No shade on Chanel, but I can’t see her going further in the music industry than Sam Ryder, tbh. If I speak for my own country, The Netherlands, her song has done virtually nothing over here… even if it was produced by a Dutchman. Whereas Space Man has been picked up by radio stations and it has entered the charts.
Chanel is literally J Lo – bootleg. Give the locals a few more months and they’ll forget about her. She can’t build a career out of trying to be a local JLo.
Ratings matter more than viewer figures. ups and downs occur when countries don’t do well, withdraw or when big countries pull out and that’s to be expected. Looking at the whole picture and taking Russia and Ukraine, you can see high ratings and a peak for streaming and social media engagement, and I think that reflects the steadiness in the overall interest in the contest. I just hope we can keep the small countries from withdrawal.
Just me who feel a bit worried about Czech Republic potentially pulling out again? Eurovision final moved to CT2. Moving the final to a smaller channel will always make the viewing figures drop anyway. Last year, the final had more viewers when Benny didn’t even qualify. When CT opened for Eurosong CZ submissions, they said they had the right to cancel the selection if they were to withdraw. I could be wrong, but I’ve not seen any other countries specifying that they might withdraw. And already in 2020, CT had planned a televised final for months before cancelling it and… Read more »
I think they moved it to CT2 because there was a final of culinary competition on CT1 that was first in ratings every Saturday
Even if that was the case, that’s really just awful planning on ?T’s part. The Eurovision dates are announced well in advance, so why plan another show on the same day?
This article is not written by a TV expert or a data analyst and -sadly- it shows. The headline and the content are misleading. The best take on this argument was directly from the community here, the comments of Polegend Godnova and other users about the numbers are spot on
How was the rating in France??
Quite disappointing compared to previous years in numbers, but the market share saved a bit because it seems nobody watched the TV that evening : 2009 : 5,71 millions / ??? 2010 : 3,9 millions / ??? 2011 : 4,9 millions / 26,7% 2012 : 3,8 millions / 21,8% 2013 : 2,7 millions / 13,9% 2014 : 2,6 millions / 13,6% (France 3) 2015 : 4,41 millions / 27,6% (broadcasted now on France 2) 2016 : 4,97 millions / 28,5% 2017 : 4,67 millios / 27,3% 2018 : 5,15 millions / 28,5% 2019 : 4,8 millions / 30,2% 2021 :… Read more »
Great data…….thanks for that.
Very strange about the massive drop in 2022, coming after a second place finish. Maybe they knew where it would finish ?????
Oh thanks, i thought it could be worse because i didn’t see eurovision songs in their charts… Even Fulenn is not there…
Real ratings is probably much higher!
Please note the following participating countries are not included in the TV analysis as either they do not have TV audience measurement systems or our broadcaster is not measured: Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Israel, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, San Marino and Ukraine.
Hey Resnke, if you plan on being a real journalist you should keep your “rightfully” got the boot comments to yourself. This isn’t a platform for you to shove your personal political beliefs in people’s faces.
Hey Ray, it’s not “political” to think it’s right for Russia not to perform at contest this year. Or can you explain in what way would it have been appropriate?
The point is, the author of the article was clearly putting in her personal opinions, which aren’t necessary in a piece that’s supposed to be factual and reportive, rather than an opinion piece. I’m sure people can make up their own mind on the status of a country being excluded from the competition without sway from a reporter.
That reply was for Fatima, btw.
161M is still a huge number.
Please note the following participating countries are not included in the TV analysis as either they do not have TV audience measurement systems or our broadcaster is not measured: Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Israel, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, San Marino and Ukraine.
If they had counted San Marino, the measurement would have probably been like 161M and 20 lol
My country Serbia
2013 2 Semi-Final 11,3%
2014 Final 6,6%
2015 Final 14,7%
2016 Final 9,7%
2017 2 Semi-Final 8,5%
2018 Final 11,2%
2019 Final 9,4%
2021 Final 16,5%
2022 Final 17,5% or 47,1% market share
So almost every second viewer watched Eurovision.
The ratings are perfectly fine, and nothing to worry about. No need to be alarmed. The biggest problem is the steepening decline of traditional broadcasters in general – there’s not a huge amount the contest can do about. Except chase TikTokers and Netflix viewers, which they have been doing.
Ratings have been going down everywhere for everything, it’s just the way it is. To still get such high numbers and social media interaction in this day and age is quite the achievement. Only live broadcasts can do this. Applause.
Subjective opinion: Eurovision’s peak was from 2008 to 2016. It was more diverse and “eccentric”, with different tunes and really interesting contestants. Now it is more pretentious and “artificial”. This pre-recorded vocal “innovation” has significantly lowered the quality of singing (which is important for a CONTEST). The final show has become 4 hours long and they show the recap 4-5 times, which is a nightmare. The voting part, although exciting, is not comprehensible for most ordinary viewers and it takes too long. People’s favourites (KEIINO, Michal Szpak, Sergey Lazarev, Go_A, Zdob si Zdub) are usually underrated by the juries… A… Read more »
Please note the following participating countries are not included in the TV analysis as either they do not have TV audience measurement systems or our broadcaster is not measured: Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Israel, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia, San Marino and Ukraine.
As far as I understand, the massive amount of downvotes shows there are no problems with Eurovision, wich is cool <3 no problems, no need to worry
EBU eagerly wants Turkey to be back to increase the viewing figures. 2022 EBU Media Summit was held in Istanbul on May 23rd (it was EBU’s first in person summit in two years due to COVID-19)
Also speaking at the event , the head of EBU Noel Curren thanked TRT for hosting the event and hospitality , adding : ”We would like to increase our cooperation with TRT.”
Eurovision song contest was one of the topics discussed at the event
Does Turkish broadcaster actually really consider to return to contest?
Who knows what our government do or want anymore. They might join they might even ask for to host or they might make offensive comments and stay out.
Nothing they do make sense but also nothing surprises us anymore
Unfortunately Turkey is closer to Russia than to EU, due to Erdogan. Also gay rights in Turkey are not in good shape. So I don’t think it will be a wise choice to admit another dictator who is homophobe.
Erdogan called Prime minister of Finland to invite them to Nato and a week later he said he is the biggest opposition to Finland joining Nato and then changed his mind another 3 times.
He is not sanile anymore. Anything is possible
i don’t know what their broadcaster actually thinks but i’m curious about this topic.
I would LOVE to see Turkey back at the contest. They have so many talented singers
I don’t think turkey after years of rapidly becoming more Islamist under Erdogan should be making a return ,don’t support It. It’s controversial enough that Israel and Azerbaijan enter, with their respective human rights abuses.
So, the main reason ESC lost viewers this year was that Russia didn’t participate?
And belarus and with significant parts of Ukraine down.. plus there’s abour 8 countries whose ratings havent been included.. plus all the live streaming oj youtube and tiktok
Because year after year of too much modernization and changes the contest is rapidly losing its purpose on why at very first place it was held. So why waste watching ESC if it’s no longer special, what’s the difference of ESC to The Voice, Got Talent, X Factor etc. if its just becoming a usual show.
lol
Another old fart, that cant stand the modernisation of the show. Quality is up, less camp has done wonders and now artists can actually use it to launch their careers
I think that another reason why the Czech ratings are so low is the extremely bad commentary, it was making my ears bleeding and since this year the stream on youtube was blocked I had to use VPN Also they don’t promote it at all and when they do they do it in programs that almost no one watches I was once thinking printing some posters and put in around my neighborhood to raise at least a bit more awareness about Eurovision lol Tbh I don’t get it why we participate when they don’t even make an effort promote it… Read more »
I think Slovakia will not return soon. People are not interested in it here.
People are not interested in it here in Czech Republic but we still participated for 8 years (!!!) in a row
Rumor says CZ participate beacuse CT Director ran for EBU vice presidency (and won) 😉
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2020/10/delphine-ernotte-and-petr-dvoak-elected-as-president-and-vice-president-of-the-ebu
It didn’t have the same vibe to it this year, for me anyway. I’m usually stalking sites like this in the run up to the contest and all excited at Eurovision week. But this year, I just wasn’t. Something felt off. I don’t know if it was the war in Ukraine, or the fact that I’m Irish and we never qualify that I’ve become just numb to it. It’s hard to say. I’m hoping I get my love of Eurovision back next year. Apparently I’m not the only one that wasn’t feeling it. Shame though as I thought RAI done… Read more »
Yeah. I mentally switched off every time Mika appeared. And a number of my favourites didn’t make it out of Semi 1.
Yes….know what you mean. Those neon bright suits and matching scarves !!!!
It didn’t help either with twice the amount of usual whiners saying how it was the worst year ever. They were actually starting to make me believe it was true for a while. It wasn’t.
Songs where pretty good this year, including the winner and runner up.
The host city was class, the arena looked stunning, 2 out of the 3 hosts where on point. The interval acts etc . Everything was there for an awesome show.
There will always be whiner’s we get it every year.
There was just something off.
Yeh I agree, coming from a fan that was there in Turin and have been going for the last 10 years. This was the least enjoyable by far. It very much felt a commercial eurovision was taking over and it wasn’t for the fans anymore. The ticket sale was a mess, eurovision village was just absolutely awful so much so we ended up watching the final in an Irish bar. The city and people were quite miserable towards us. And anything eurovision related entailed a monster long queue. I so miss the days of being able to stroll into a… Read more »
It was my first time going to a Eurovision village, and I really liked it, just out of interest, what was better/different in other years?
No eurovision village last year hence no tourists at all.
Since it’s turning into some lip sync playback contest it will be very deserved that by 2030 the bankrupt will be there with people not watching it anymore.
Who cares about the best studio playback song winning.
In the no-to-distant future, the contest will comprise TikTok clips as entries and TikTok views as votes. That’s the way we’re going. Thanks, Österdahl.
That’s chilling. That needs to never be on the cards
I understand the EBU has to “spin” things to the positive, but their assessment that the viewing figures were somehow AMAZING was mind-boggling. Completely transparent and out of touch. Yet another example of how their media team is a bit of a joke.
It really is not bad at all if you consider Russia being out and Ukraine not being counted as they were 29 million last year. I agree with the EBU on this one that this is quite a good rating since they went up 7 million in the markets excluding Russia and Ukraine
Anyone would die to have those kind of numbers for a single three-day live TV event that air across multiple territories on terrestrial television every year.
well obviously going down, when they could’ve had over 200 million viewers if Malta just had Aidan competing in the contest and in the final with Ritmu
now this year was just a very boring year all in all
And it don’t look like Russia will be back any time this entire decade. And on top of that, Belarus is still a big question mark.
Methinks 175 million ought to be EBU’s goal for the future. Does Australia get its contract renewed? Does the ESC go continental, inviting one country from every continent outside of Europe? They’ve got a trial run going with a Canadian contest next year.
i think they should try and get slovakia, turkey, luxembourg back and it would be the same
Even try and get countries like Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt or Lebanon if possible (I know some of these countries have or had issues with Israel, to put it in a few words, but I’ve read some of them have formal ties with Israel nowadays)
Those countries have massive issues with human rights they make Israel look whiter than white – no more MENA countries should be allowed enter except maybe Lebanon. turkey was mulling over criminalising gays again not long ago and euro fans just think they’re exotic ,let them back’…
Is Belarus still a country? Aren’t they going to be absorbed by Russia very soon?
We Europeans are tired of political manipulation and cronyism within ESC
If so then why did ‘we europeans’ vote for ukraine en masse? Lol
It’s impossible to say who exactly voted for Ukraine – whether these were natives, millions of Ukrainians displaced from their home, or both.
Yes the millions of displaced Ukrainians in Cyprus voting for Stefania
That’s Cyprus. What about all the other countries?
Also, I’m happy that Ukraine won, so I’m not questioning anything really.
It would explain why Cyprus didn’t give 12 points to Greece 😉
90% of the displaced Ukrainians now in Poland, what about other 38 countries? lol
and if you don’t know almost 1.1 million already have returned to Ukraine month ago after Russian army was pushed back from north of the country
I do know that. I live in Poland, just by the Ukrainian border, thank you.
Also, that was just a “do we even know the televoting figures?” question. You don’t need millions of people vote to get points, if not many people vote overall, that’s it.
The Czech ratings are a combination of more factors: secondary channel, mixed reputation of the contest, no promotion on behalf of Czech TV, the national final being rather clandestine and off-screen and some more.
Of course, this year and its “scandals” will not help the reputation much. But then again, high ratings are unlikely, unless Czech TV starts to promote the event incl. the national selection like they do with other international formats domestically implemented: Great Bakeoff, Dancing with the Stars etc.
It does make sense for the Czech ratings, when the Ebu always give them a bad running order for the grand final.
Ridiculous, Czech national broadcaster moved eurovision from chanel one to chanel two that not many people watch anyway. And secondly, eurovision has never had high rating in Czech Republic anyway.
I think (as a Czech) that one of the reasons also could be the final of culinary competition on CT1 that was first in ratings every Saturday, even though it ran at the same time as Eurovision for like 15 minutes, but show that has more than million viewers every week vs Eurovision Final that has around 150k every year, it’s obvious that they would prefer the culinary show
EBU still gave them bad number what a joke – some countries has a name i guess for EBU …
I would have thought otherwise, now that they’ve had some competitive qualifiers like Mikolas Josef and Lake Malawi. And had We Are Domi not been given the leadoff spot in the final, they might have finished in the middle.
It certainly doesn’t help the broadcaster build hype or interest when they are buried in the worst slots available every time they qualify ( 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 14th). It is only a matter of time before Czech Republic follows Slovakia and permanently withdraws – the broadcaster is likely getting a bit fed up at this point
Opening a grand final ain’t that half-bad.
When you’re expected to finish somewhere in the middle, it could easily be the death-knell for you. I saw it coming the sooner the singing order was made official.
Czech Republic should try to invest people into the contest more – like televised nf, more promotion for the selected artist and such.
Naaaaah… Eurovision had, has, has been having and will always have a promising future ahead. Eurovision is a labour of love, one tradition of humanity’s. See ya in [host city here]7486…!!!
It’s not a certainty. Just look at the oscars. It’s status and viewership is getting lower and lower every year. You need to work on the brand.
No wonder EBU is adamant on exporting the concept overseas in the USA and Canada.
With Eurovision, I always see it as less about the big picture and more about seeing it do well in specific markets. I’m ecstatic to see the numbers rise in the UK and Romania for instance.
that 161 million number from the ebu is the people who watched at least 1 minute of the broadcast, while broadcasters normally release the number of average viewers (so those who watched a more significant part of the show), so that’s why it never really adds up to the ebu’s number. the more accurate average number is around 60-70 million. we also have to consider that more and more people are no longer watching tv overall and moving to streaming platforms. as for the more abysmal than usual viewers in the czech republic, it’s mainly because they moved the broadcast… Read more »
Simple, many people lost interest as they saw the quality of the songs did not meet their expectations, Same thing happened in 2017,2018 and 2019 (Dark days of Eurovision in my opinion).
Nobody except for eurofans check out all the songs before the show.
And then the salty ones will watch the show eveb when they say they won’t
How will Eurovision hold on, will it be an streaming event in the future?
They did made an early jump from radio to television in the early years. Streaming is the next great frontier.
many people feel sad or disappointed after just reading the title of the article, without knowing the context that the number was taken from fewer number of markets. 161 million in 34 markets ? 183 million in 36 market ? 204 million in 40 market. I am sure the number will reach at least 190 million when we get 42 or 43 participating countries again, some year in the future.
EBU has already set the limit to just 40 countries to make the contest more manageable.
Some inaccuracies: Belarus withdrawal is insignificant to the rates. It’s a small country with even smaller rates. Russia yes it hurts the total viewing figures of Eurovision but let\s not forget that the LIVE streaming of Eurovision grand final has been watched by 20 million people on youtube which is the highest of all time. Do not forget to account the thousands of live viewers watching the show online: RTVE recorded 500,000 online views for their live streaming of Eurovision and BBC recorded 2.2 million views on BBC iPlayer for Eurovision grand final. Russia might have 180m as their population… Read more »
regarding Australia, SBS has never been in top when it comes to ratings; it is never like the top tv channels, unlike the big three of Seven Network, Nine Network and Network Ten. I don’t know whether it would have more viewers if it was moved to ABC.
All of the other four main channels in Australia usually beat it in Australia. It’s not even the most watched show of the night, never mind week, month or year. This only annoys me because the supposed popularity of the contest in Australia is how the EBU justifies inviting a non-member. We can see that not qualifying can come at a cost in viewers, so I’m really not sure if this is fair to actual members – they’re the ones paying the price.
If i could, I would cross out one of those Australias in the first sentence.
I don’t think SBS competes with other TV networks on Australia considering it is public service media. It doesn’t have a particularly large share in the ratings pie there but it usually have, from what I understand, higher than their average amount of their main audience tuning to Eurovision in two particular time periods. It takes into account both the shows’ early morning live broadcasts and its primetime encores later in the day.
BBC is a public service broadcaster, the contest gave them their most-watched show of the year so far. The EBU is a whole union of public service broadcasters. That’s not the problem. It’s just that SBS is a much smaller one, and the Australians don’t ever seem to have gotten into the habit of actually watching it. The commercial giants rule.
I mean, you also have to see this in a particular perspective. SBS airs the show live early in the morning so the numbers there will always be low but put into perspective, they’re getting better than average figures on an otherwise dead slot. Their primetime encores the following night actually builds on that. Whether or not those same figures don’t look very competitive compared to the bigger networks of Seven, Ten and Nine, the continued airing of ESC for more than three decades means SBS is hitting their target audience right, which is vastly different to that of Nine… Read more »
I don’t know why I failed to see “perspective” written there twice. lol
Is that enough to justify their invitation? They might even be made permanent next year. I just think it’s sad that the contest is on the main national channel in most countries, but in Australia it is on the least watched. If their much-vaunted “long history” of thirty nine years still results in such low numbers, I think it’s very misleading to paint their participation as based on huge popularity.
I don’t believe in special treatment for just one associate member.
An associate member that have aired the contest the longest outside of Europe and still to this day. That would mean that it has found an audience for them to justify continuing to air it for decades and even put its name forward for the EBU to consider handing an invitation.
And that audience is very specific for SBS as it targets indigenous and other multicultural viewers. If that demo resonated with ESC, they’ll tune in, giving reason for the network to keep it long-term.
They just showed the BBC Terry Wogan version for the first 25 years, which really did not take much effort on their part. They were a struggling small broadcaster who needed something to fill their schedule. Their own history with the contest really begins in 2007, when they first sent a commentator of their own. I really have no idea how it is okay to give one country an invitation and shut another like Kazakhstan out. The only fair place to draw the line for me is full membership.
on top of that, none of the eurovision songs entered the top 500(!!!) of the australian singles chart as reported here
I heard the lower Czech numbers reflect the broadcast being moved to a secondary channel. But that move in itself may be worrisome.
On the flip side if CT’s secondary channel seen an improved bump in its viewership compared to the same period last year, they could easily spin that to being a relative success for the channel itself if it’s bot getting that much eyeballs to begin with. 🙂
Why is Belarus insignificant? Compared to many of the other countries a population of 10 million really is not significant. I can’t find ratings of other years so maybe you know more than I do but I thought eurovision was quite popular in Belarus