THE 2026 EUROVISION Song Contest was watched by 131 million viewers, organisers said Friday, down 35 million on the year before after Ireland and four other countries boycotted over Israel’s participation.
Bulgaria won the contest for the first time with Dara’s catchy floor-filler “Bangaranga” sweeping the 70th edition of the world’s biggest live televised music event, with Israel finishing in second place. The UK finished last.
RTÉ joined broadcasters in Spain, Slovenia, Iceland and the Netherlands in deciding not to send an act or air the contest in protest at Israel’s participation amid its war on Gaza.
The 2025 contest was watched by an average audience of 5.8 million people in Spain, and 3.5 million people in the Netherlands. In Ireland, RTÉ’s broadcast of last year’s contest garnered an average of 268,000 viewers.
This year’s Eurovision was held in Vienna, with the grand final taking place on 16 May.
Protests were held in Vienna over Israel’s participation, and chants of ‘stop of the genocide’ could be heard during Israel’s performance in the semi-final.
The contest is run by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world’s biggest public-service media alliance.
“While some of our figures are naturally lower without those of our five members who chose not to participate this year, we remain committed to doing everything possible to find pathways back for them in 2027,” said Eurovision director Martin Green.
Big Nordic audiences
The biggest share of viewers watching Eurovision was recorded in Finland (93%), Sweden (86%), Norway (83%) and Denmark (79%).
Across the board in 35 measured TV markets, the grand final attracted an average viewing share of 42.6%.
The share for viewers aged 15 to 24 was higher, at 54.8%.
The EBU noted that viewing figures were down 3.8 million in Poland, 3.7 million in Britain and 3.3 million in France, compared to those for Eurovision 2025, held in the Swiss city of Basel.
Eurovision garnered more than a billion views for content on Instagram this year.
“It’s fantastic to see the impact the Eurovision Song Contest is having on young audiences globally,” said Green.
“The hundreds of millions reached via our digital platforms also underlines the Eurovision Song Contest’s 70-year evolution from a TV show to a true global, cultural, multi-platform phenomenon.”
People in 148 different countries and territories cast votes for their favourites.
Outside the 35 participating countries, the biggest votes were received from the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Slovakia and Turkey. Continue Reading - https://www.thejournal.ie/eurovision-viewers-down-israel-7062161-Jun2026/
Isn’t it a little weird to have Israel in Eurovision to begin with? I mean, they aren’t a country in Europe, so why are they there in the first place?
They also don’t have a European culture. They are war criminal theocrats with a supremecist constitution and dont sign on to global conventions that the rest of the EU does. They should be part of a middleeast-vision show. Plus no one wants to see their stupid effing racist songs on tv.
White
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union
Any member can send a contestant.
Wow thats almost as many people as the zionist state of israel has displaced, killed or disappeared into concentration camps since its inception
Fuck Israel.
I simply can’t believe anyone still watches that trash
Isreal came in second place‽ I’ve never watched this shit once, but even I can tell that’s not how the majority feels. Blatantly laughing in our face — once again. Cowards
they always come second due to vote manipulation
How do they manipulate the votes?
Simple, it’s against Eurovision rules for broadcasters and governments to advertise their acts or tell people to vote for their acts.
Hasbara, the Israeli state propaganda outlet, routinely spends around a mil a year aggressively advertising the Israeli contestant and telling people to vote for them. Interestingly, these campaigns are done in multiple languages.
And the EBU doesnt mind €1 per vote if that county doesn’t win and make it awkward.
Once you combine that with the “are the gays taking over Eurovision?” rumor, it’s easy to see how a bunch of fundies in Texas might be compelled to vote without even watching Eurovision at all.
You can vote as many times as you want. It’s almost free propaganda if you have the funds to send text messages.
That explains so much about everything surrounding this “competition”! Thank you.
A lot of people don’t consider it trash, more like a contaminated meal.
It’s a bit like the great british bake off, except they finely season and cook some sheet music, eat it, then shit it out into a microphone.
It’s a lot like Great British bake-off sure, but it’s not like they show the cakes are shat out after tasting it, so i’m not sure how that is part of the comparison.
yeah but imagine how those cakes would taste if they were eaten and shat out before being tested. Now apply that ‘taste’ to the quality of the music.
Israel got SECOND? Eurovision is ANTISEMETIC!
-The BBC!
No worries, Australia is already checking their voting in parliament.
Imagine supporting genocide just to watch some musical acts. Does no one have principles anymore?
Most people don’t give a shit about anything abstract or remote. There’s tons of users still on Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Yeah people tend to create a bubble of their own and wilfully ignore controversies.
I could at least excuse 3% of it if they were fantastic, once in a lifetime performances. But we’re talking about mediocre at best here. How low have the principles fallen?
That’s so mean to say, the Eurovision entries are genuinely creative! Both music and performances. The winning Bulgarian song Bangaranga by DARA for example is about self-empowerment and defiance of a non-conforming society featuring visuals of literal masking and multiple genre changes in the music.
Other notable songs, in my opinion, are:
- Lithuania’s entry Sólo Quiero Más by Lion Ceccah, which is about what keeps people alive in a hopeless world.
- Romania’s entry Choke Me by Alexandra Căpitănescu mixing alt rock with opera singing.
- Greece’s entry Ferto by Akylas about gambling addiction and escapeism.
- Switzerland’s entry Alice by Veronica Fusaro about toxic relationships and abuse towards women with visuals of being captured and bound by a web of lies.
Every artist who makes it to Eurovision can be proud of themselves, it really is a great contest. Nonetheless I would also want the EBU to exclude Israel from participating. It’s hypocrisy to exclude Russia for starting a war but not Israel.
People are allowed to be mean and hold mean opinions of publicly shared artworks. I think the vast majority of works in Eurovision is soulless and entirely forgettable. The exceptions are so few and far between that it’s not worth it for me to watch the show.
it really is a great contest.
You should be ashamed of yourself, as should every performer in it. Theres plenty of venues and opportunities to perform without soiling yourself with affiliating with an Israel propoganda event. Shame.
I took objection to a song promoting or normalising choking.
Imagine supporting genocide just to watch some terrible musical acts. Does no one have principles anymore?
FTFY
does no one have principles anymore?
People eat billions of tons of meat every year purely for entertainment. Hope that answers your question.
Unless you’re talking about blowjobs, what you wrote makes no sense.
Put that sausage down unless you’re actually going to eat it bro.
Fuck Israel & bibis lap dog, the US military
Israel, Bibi, and the US military are all lapdogs of Western capitalists.
Nah. I mean, yes, but framing their actions as purely financial based will raise several inconsistencies. Whereas white supremacism and fascism explain everything. Money is just a means to power, not their end goal.
Well, power is their end goal, and that is achieved through money. Fascism and white supremacy are societal levers that they pull in order to divide and subjugate the working class. I’m sure some of the oligarchs are true believers of that shit, but systemically, fascism and racism are tools used to assert power whenever capitalism is in crisis. This is supported by the historical record, too.
So, most people just don’t care about anything. We as Europeans should be ashamed. Always only words but no real will to act.
This is genuienly why I love lemmy. People don’t like genociders here.
People don’t like genociders here.
Unfortunately this is not true for all users and all ‘genociders’ … There is a community here on Lemmy that supports dictatorships, including their genocidal policies.
The UK finished last.
Good to see some positive traditions are being upheld, at least!
The biggest share of viewers watching Eurovision was recorded in Finland (93%), Sweden (86%), Norway (83%) and Denmark (79%).
Ugh. Makes me ashamed of my people 🤦🏻
What is wrong with us Nordics??
Eurovision addiction? 🤷🏻
Like Christian holidays and other traditions of questionable origins, it’s so culturally ingrained that most normies I know can’t imagine not watching no matter how complicit in some of the world’s worst atrocities the competition is 😮💨
Bow I feel even more valid stealing hardstyle kicks from there. They are complicit.
93% of what?
broadcast share, of all broadcast TV viewers, 93% watched the Eurovision finals, i.e. all other channels combined only hat a total of 7%
honestly, I dont know anyone that still watches broadcast TV (all Netflix and co and online live streams), but that’s still a crazy high percentage
They should lose all viewers. They can rename it to Chzon retzch im ( Genocide vision ) and air it only in the “state” of israel.
No, they can kick Israel out until it gets its shit together.
Israel finishing in second place. they’re still cheating.
they always cheat at literally everything.
If you didn’t watch it, you didn’t miss anything.
Way too mainstream and boring. no fun, even finnland was boring.
Finland, just so we’re clear. Otherwise, it’s going to have to be a knife fight at the closest city centre. Finnish tradition and all.
Wait… Finland, but Finnish?
alright, i’ll pass on the knife fight though. Unless, you mean we watch one? that would be ok i guess?Consonant-vowel-consonant letter duplication rule, I think.
Yes, Finland, but Finnish. I’ll spare you the knife fight since you seem like a nice guy.
Jokes aside, it was indeed something that occurred here to settle disputes way back. We’re a little bit more civilised now ;)
Considering the “Personal space differences accross southern / northern europe” meme, it’s surprising that the finnish would use kives. I would have expected extralong longswords :D
Back in ye olden days people used to indeed just club each other to death with a long and heavy club.
Everyone in the countryside obviously carried a knife for practical purposes, though, and there were occasionally gangs of young punks who kept stabbing each other over petty feuds. This persisted up until perhaps the late 19th century and became more urban as time went on. They called themselves “Puukkojunkkarit,” which does more or less means “knife punk.”
Ironically, this has somewhat gone full circle with EDC’s. I carry one most of the time. Less stabbings, though, which is nice.
If you’re interested in more knowledge than I can impart:
We watch it every year normally, and have done for years. However not this year, purely due to handling of Israel and we are in the UK so don’t even care about winning.
The biggest share of viewers watching Eurovision was recorded in Finland (93%), Sweden (86%), Norway (83%) and Denmark (79%)
Share of viewers seems like a potentially problematic statistic to base comparisons on. Is it share of everyone watching linear TV? Do people still watch linear TV in parts of Europe outside of big live events? Percentage change in absolute viewership from last year would have been a better indicator.
Anyway, I usually either go to or host Eurovision parties. This year the whole thing went by unnoticed. It seems nobody watched it, and nobody talked about it.
Eurovision is really big here in Sweden, and Israel’s atrocities are hand-waved away by many.
I was surprised to learn that people could vote from the U.S. 🤔
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In Sweden, there was a Huge loss of viewers - 600,000 fewer people watched the final compared to last year
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In Norway Ratings sharply down for Eurovision final - NRK reports that there were only 676,000 viewers.
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In Denmark the final was the most-watched since 2019,with an average audience of 847,000
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According to Finnpanel (Finland TV and Radio stats) - https://www.finnpanel.fi/en/tulokset/tv/vko/top100/2026/20/index.html
The broadcast of the final of the song contest reached over 2.7 million viewers during the evening, roughly 1.8 million watched it.
I’m rather confused by the distinction here between “programme reach” and “rating” - how can the show reach someone and they not be considered a viewer, in a way that anyone would be able to track?
- “Rating” is the average number of viewers during the program.
- “Program Reach” is the number of viewers that watched at least one continuous minute of the program.
Aha thanks
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I don’t watch Eurovision myself but it’s been huge here since it started in the 1950s and through the years when nobody else cared and before it became popular again so I think it would be near impossible to get Scandis to boycott it en masse.
I don’t understand what this % is. 93% of Finns do not watch the Eurovision. More like 40%, if that.
If only one person in Finland watched linear television at the time, and that person watched Eurovision, the figure would be 100%. Basically it makes little to no sense in a world where people don’t watch TV obsessively any more.
Yeah share of viewers as a statistic is so dumb, the amount of people watching it in Norway has fallen drastically (not related to Israel, people have just stopped caring as much) but 83% sounds like a lot, because it’s the share of the tiny amount of people who still watch TV.
Even when people just don’t care any more in Norway it’s arguably indirectly related to Israel, since some artists (notably Ylvis) stepped out of the competition. The whole thing this year felt like a concert at a Trump rally, where only spineless and morally deprived artists are willing to play.
