He’s good to go. Martin Österdahl is stepping down as Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest.
He has been in the position for five years after originally being appointed in 2020.
His tenure in the role was beset by a number of challenges, including hosting Eurovision during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More recently, Österdahl came under pressure following the decision to disqualify Dutch representative Joost Klein over a backstage incident in 2024, and the ongoing protests over Israel’s participation — both of which resulted in him being booed by the live audience in Malmö last year.
Martin Green, the current Director of the Eurovision Song Contest, will take on the Executive Supervisor duties for the time being. But a re-structuring of the management team has been hinted, with more news to follow later.
Martin Österdahl steps down as Eurovision Executive Supervisor
Below is the press release of the announcement.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has announced that Martin Österdahl will be stepping down from his role as Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) and Junior Eurovision Song Contest (JESC), following five years of overseeing and transforming the world’s largest music event.
Appointed in 2020, Martin Österdahl has managed a period of remarkable innovation and resilience in the Contest’s history, including the staging of the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam during the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, the unprecedented hosting of the 2023 Contest by the BBC in Liverpool on behalf of 2022’s winning broadcaster, Ukraine’s Suspilne, and this year’s record-breaking edition hosted by SRG SSR in Basel.
Under his leadership, the Eurovision Song Contest has implemented changes to modernize the Contest and extend its reach – including advancing digital engagement and deepening its commitment to inclusivity and creativity across Europe and beyond – ensuring the event has continued to grow in popularity and relevance.
Prior to his appointment as ESC Executive Supervisor, Martin Österdahl, was twice the Executive Producer of the Eurovision Song Contest (2013, 2016) and a member of the ESC Reference Group for seven years.
Reflecting on his role as Executive Supervisor for five ESCs in Rotterdam, Turin, Liverpool, Malmö and Basel, and JESCs in Warsaw, Paris, Yerevan, Nice and Madrid, Martin Österdahl said:
“From day one, I was inspired by the Contest’s unique potential and power to unite people through music—never more so than in 2021, when we brought Eurovision back live to millions around the world amid a global pandemic, demonstrating the resilience and spirit at the heart of our community. I am immensely proud of the changes we made to modernize and strengthen the Eurovision Song Contest. These include establishing the permanent “United By Music” slogan for the event, attracting long term sponsors and brand extension partnerships, and growing engagement and reach on our digital platforms that have brought millions of new fans to the Contest.
“The ESC is now an event where hundreds of thousands sign up to buy tickets, a show watched by hundreds of millions, connecting with youth audiences worldwide, and stands as a unique platform for overnight global success for artists and songwriters.
“As my overall involvement with the ESC is now approaching a period of twenty years in total, it has been the honour of my professional life to steer the world’s largest music event, developing the Contest as a global super brand that brings joy to more people than ever before.
“I am deeply grateful to the entire ESC community and particularly to the ESC Core Team, participating broadcasters, artists, and fans for their passion and support.”
Martin Green CBE, Director of the Eurovision Song Contest, commented:
“On behalf of everyone at the EBU, all our participating broadcasters, partners and the entire Eurovision Song Contest community, I extend my sincere thanks to Martin Österdahl for his vision, expertise and tireless commitment to the event. His steady leadership through some of the Contest’s most challenging and innovative years has set new standards of excellence. As we approach our 70th anniversary next year, Martin is leaving his role having played an integral part in growing the Eurovision Song Contest brand and ensuring its bright future. We thank him for his amazing work and lasting impact on the Song Contest, and wish him every success.”
Martin Green CBE, who was appointed Director of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2024, will assume the Executive Supervisor’s duties on an interim basis.
Further announcements regarding the future structure of the Eurovision Song Contest team will be made in due course.
I think many of fans are about to hit the wall with their expectations because don’t quite understand how the contest works. Pretty much none of the things they’ve been hating on Martin were within Martin’s competences. Whether it’s Israeli participation, or disqualification of Netherlands, that kind of stuff is way about his pay grade. Those decisions are made by the reference group and him leaving will hace zero impact on them. I pity the person who will take the job next. That is not to say I like him, there was stuff he did a lot of damage with… Read more »
People are making this more serious than it really is.
I think Martin O. did a pretty good job. I can’t with folks blaming him solely for everything that was or went wrong the last five years or so. Bet he’s had enough of all the drama.
Board…start downvoting. :p
The contest will NEVER NOT BE POLITICAL because of the “FANS” that make everything political and cry, whimper and complain about absolutely every aspect of the contest. The “FANS” are what make it toxic and unenjoyable. I think Martin Österdahl is fantastic and he will definitely be missed!! Still… onwards and upwards we go (please ban israel)
Finally, someone’s saying it
Nobody will miss him, literally nobody. Thats how bad of a job he did. So while it was inevitable and more than called for since they could never give this guy any airtime without getting booed into oblivion again, the big problems remain, including the very real possibilty of even worse replacements to come.
His era was nothing but issues spiralling out of control and taking gigantic proportions, some due to external events (e.g. COVID) but mostly due to his poor judgement, terrible decisions and lack of action. He kept repeating the contest was non-political, and yet his contests were the most political ever. You’re good to go indeed.
You’re right, though regarding COVID he should have found a way to stage the contest in some form. They managed it for junior that year.
I am grateful for being able to vote in Eurovision being from California. It makes me feel more connected with ESC. Merci Beaucoup Martin Österdahl.
Luckily yall as a collective only got 12 points cuz PHEW, not that we don’t know where those 12 are goin, but oh well.
I know it’s not possible but I’d love a less political contest.
Make it about the music again.
Increase the number of people allowed on stage to 10 or 12.
Allow instruments to be played live also.
I do not want more people on stage. I’ve seen song contests where they have too many people and then you cannot find the singer.
I agree but I get the point that 6 is too few sometimes
Disagree with 10 or 12
But agree that an orchestral element should be an option, especially if crowd noise is now restricted
A too crowded stage and we get the disaster fire that was the American Song Contest.
Good riddance
I hope the new appointment brings the contest back to basics. What so called professional jurors like is at odds with what the public like. Bring back the random draws for running order. The staging elements is a factor is wearing thin now. To remove the perception that a Nordic appointment to the post influences a certain Nordic country can we have someone at the helm who is not from a Nordic country.
Agree with everything. Those in charge should look at what worked at past contests. Get rig of flags altogether.
Now Easyjet needs good to go by it’s advertisement supported Israel’s televote campaign
To Martin Green: Stop humiliating acts by putting them on screen when their single-digit (or zero digit) televote score is announced. It’s not fun for them and lowers to tone of the contest to that of cheap reality TV.
Please, someone with no connection to SVT!!… We had enough of Swedish bias.Thanks!
One Martin is out, the other Martin is in…
But nothing will be that much different. They transformed Eurovision into a business, money is way too involved … and numbers matter more than principles.
the only thing i would want is for them to allow live instruments this is suppost to be a song contest so why not allow that
“And the new Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest is…. Christer Bjorkman”!!!
Imagine!!!
Then Eurovision is going to be a plastic playbackshow.
Playback started in Sanremo in the 1980s – in 1987 in fact!
Now it is over from years. Sanremo has live voice and instruments.
Eurovision Horror Show
As Teya and Salena sang after Eurovision, bye bye bye.
And our Brooke
I would’ve thought there would be a lot more comments on here with this news, but either there’s a lot of filtering going on here and comments will show up later, or it’s just the summertime audience downturn that usually happens between the end of one Eurovision and starting a new Eurovision year. So, it’s finally happened. Martin Österdahl has stepped down. I have a couple questions though. Did he decide on his own accord to leave, or was he pushed out? Did he reach the natural end of his contract, or was it ended earlier than planned? Official statement… Read more »
When one has got nothing nice to say, why bothering?
HE’S GOOD TO GO!
I was waiting for a bunch of comments but what is this ???
It’s down season?
that’s how much we care. it’s what he deserves
This is the day of independence
For all the Munchkins and their descendants
The will bring another pro-Zionist I assume…
Good riddance.
A few suggestions
Yes to all of the above
List of good suggestions. thank you !
One more: – Running order should be determined totally by random draw. No more producer’s choice.
That sounds good until you end up with a bunch of ballads in a row and the people who only like dance songs all tune out. . . But you could put a rule in place that only allows, say, three similar songs in a row . .
But most of all – ALL SINGING MUST BE LIVE!! including the background singers.
See my suggestion below. RANKED-CHOICE VOTING; one vote, only one, for your top 10 (you can’t choose your own country). You must vote for all 10 for your #1 pick to get 12 points. Highest point total gets 12 points for any given country.
For the juries, I agree that they should have 10 on every jury, and implement ranked-choice voting for the juries.
Agree but the big problem with televote is that you CAN vote for your own country if you are not in that country. Which is the case for millions.
That is a problem that the EBU will have to investigate further for a solution. The good news, though, is with this method, you can only vote ONCE; and if you want your top choice to get 12 points, you have to pick 9 others to fill out your top 10. If you pick only one, that one choice will get only one point.
I like your thinking. Let’s appoint you to succeed the Martins.
Make Austrian Airlines as the official airline for Eurovision 2026, as Easyjet was caused controversy and hopefully it gets dumped. And it would’ve been in 2024 to decide to disqualify the Israeli representative Eden Golan due to harassment and abuse, illegal filming and other various incidents to the other competing artists.
Time to bring back the live backing vocals, stop the rest of the world-voting, professional juries in the semi-finals and BAN Israel. Thanks!
Brief and to the point! YES!
Agree with all the above.
Yes!!! THIS! ?
Wait I’m American I’ve been happy to vote the past few years nooooooooo
As another American I agree but the ROTW vote is being manipulated by you know who to the point that it’s currently unfair
I’m from California and I like voting in Eurovision. I give my favorite singer all my votes. Loreen, Angelina Mango, and this year’s Louane.
1: Ban Israel – first and most important. This countrys participation is clearly bringing the contests reputiation into disrepute – so if Russia was banned because of this reason then there is no reason for why this other one shouldnt. 2: Bring back backing vocals – agree totally. 3: The one who decides the running order should be a different person/team every year so to avoid favouring some countries. 4: ALL voting has to happen in the same time window – including the rest of the world vote. the 24h voiting window for that one group was just a bad… Read more »
Now that the dude stepped out, can we reverse all the sttupid decisions he took while in charge?
First of all, remove recorded vocals.
Second, no more producer’s choice and televote opened all night. No more Christer Bjorkman and Swedish mafia ruling the contest.
Yes, please no televote only, semis anymore there are some good jury songs that should have made it these last few years
I agree in principle but cannot think of any jury song that stayed in the semifinals.
Aija, Latvia 2023 (That would have for sure qualified if we had juries)
Latvia 2023, Iceland 2023, Czechia 2024 and 2025
Sweden to get starting position # 2 for the next 50 years
Bring the jury back to the semifinals. And replace the current voting procedure (20 votes) with RANKED-CHOICE voting (you get to vote ONLY ONCE, for your top 10), with a twist that someone suggested at YouTube: If you only vote for one, that choice will get one point. If you vote for two, your top choice will get 2 points. If you vote for 6, your top choice gets 6 points. If you vote for 9, your top choice gets 10 points. If you vote for all 10, your top choice gets 12 points. The idea here is to keep… Read more »
One more thing: Return the start of voting to the point AFTER the last performer sings! Let the people (especially the ones who didn’t watch the semis) watch all of the performances and let them sink in, before they make their decisions. Not everybody watches all 3 shows.
Take Israel with you, Mr Österdahl.
Could’ve been decided to disqualify Eden Golan last year prior to the final due to various incidents.
Indeed!
The more countries in ESC the better. ESC is about the music. Not politics. We need to bring back Russia and Belarus and keep Israel. When I listen to ESC music my mind is free from current/past politics. I’m here to just enjoy the music.
Nice to see the swamp getting drained.
Wonder what Swede will replace him… :/
More big necessary changes please, especially that one BIG change.
He’s getting replaced by Martin Green
Temporarily apparently so I’ll wait and see. Green isn’t much better though you’re right
I never said anything like that about Green
I hope no Swedes for at least 50 years. We had enough. Eurovision is not a SVT property. And doesn’t need to become an empty silly pop song factory like it is Melfest.
ESC 2024 was in Malmö, not Stockholm (in the 4th paragraph)
Bye bye baby baby bye bye
Bye bye baby, baby goodbye
Itke en, kun loppuu tää
(I won’t cry when this is over.)
*Deadpool starts dancing*
lol get out
Waiting for the comments to cheer
Bye mother