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/
The ESC can absolutely fuck itself. I started boycotting it before it was cool to do so (my boycott can legally drink alcohol in the US)
Fuck Israel & bibis lap dog, the US military
Israel, Bibi, and the US military are all lapdogs of Western capitalists.
I did my part. Fuck EBU and Israel.
“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.
Well, clearly not everything possible.
“We would rather back a genocidal regime that constantly tries to fix the competition votes, than have those five members in the competition, who between them have won the competition 14 times”
oh
“and we know that we have we have already disqualified 9 other entries in the past, including the Netherlands, but not for genocide. We’re okay with that”
“What we really don’t agree with is countries invading other countries! We take a very serious stance on that issue, as is evident with our expulsion of Russia from the competition”
Of course it has nothing to do with the main sponsor being an Israeli company.
They don’t really care about Israel being in the competition, they are about the money they lose when the sponsor pulls out.
Thanks for the tldr
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?
35 mil sounds a lot but it’s rougly 1/5 that dropped out. Sounds less spectacular. Dissapointing even
1/5 is a lot, what are you on about? “should’ve been more” yes, and? 20% is a big win, it’d be more than enough to cancel many a show. I honestly am more bothered by the article saying “over Israel’s war in Gaza” intead of acurately calling a genocide in Palestine
I thought so too, but it’s still 35 million, also it has grown in viewership in the US.
It’s roughly the entire population of Poland or Ukraine.
Or to make it sound more impressive, - It is roughly the entire populations of Croatia + Switzerland + Bulgaria + Norway + Denmark + Cyprus + Lithuania combined 😁
But I hope it gets worse year by year as an alternative grows.
How do they know who’s viewing?
This might help. https://pointerclicker.com/how-do-tv-know-how-many-viewers/
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 🤦🏻
93% of what?
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.
Imagine supporting genocide just to watch some musical acts. Does no one have principles anymore?
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.
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.
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.
purely for entertainment
I’m pretty sure it’s for sustenance
Israel got SECOND? Eurovision is ANTISEMETIC!
-The BBC!
No worries, Australia is already checking their voting in parliament.
They should lose all viewers. They can rename it to Chzon retzch im ( Genocide vision ) and air it only in the “state” of israel.
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.
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.
I was surprised to learn that people could vote from the U.S. 🤔
-
In Sweden, there was a Huge loss of viewers - 600,000 fewer people watched the final compared to last year
-
In Norway Ratings sharply down for Eurovision final - NRK reports that there were only 676,000 viewers.
-
In Denmark the final was the most-watched since 2019,with an average audience of 847,000
-
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
-
Eurovision is really big here in Sweden, and Israel’s atrocities are hand-waved away by many.
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.
