Eurovision is back, this time without Ireland. When is it on and where is it being shown?
The 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest will be broadcast live from Vienna, Austria, this week, with semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday nights followed by Saturday’s grand final, all from 8pm.
The three shows will be aired on BBC One, but RTÉ is not showing the event, as it is one of five broadcasters boycotting this year’s contest.
Who is boycotting and why?
Broadcasters from Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Iceland announced last December that they would not participate in this year’s contest after members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) – the alliance of public service broadcasters behind the event – opted not to call a vote on whether Israel should take part, clearing the way for it to do so.
RTÉ said it felt Ireland’s participation “remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there, which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk”. It also said it was deeply concerned by the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza during the conflict and Israel’s barring of international journalists from the territory.
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The Spanish, Dutch, Slovenian and Icelandic broadcasters cited similar reasons, while some Eurovision fan groups have also decided not to attend, watch or celebrate this year’s contest.
Isn’t Eurovision meant to be a non-political event?
The EBU has regularly cited “the non-political nature” of Eurovision. For instance, it rejected a request by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to address the audience during the 2023 grand final.
In practice, political tensions have regularly surfaced throughout the contest’s 70-year history, while one of the “big five” funders of Eurovision, Spanish broadcaster RTVE, has explicitly taken issue with the claim to be apolitical.
“We are all aware that the contest carries significant political implications. The Israeli government is equally aware of this fact and leverages the event on the international stage,” RTVE president José Pablo López said last year.
Why is Israel allowed to participate when Russia was barred in 2022?
The short answer is that Israel has more supporters among EBU members than Russia. Although five EBU members decided to boycott this year, others – including the Austrian host broadcaster, ORF – were supportive of Israel’s continued involvement. Germany suggested it would boycott if Israel was prevented from taking part.
There was no such disunity in 2022, when – after initially saying it would not do so – the EBU responded to pressure from its members and barred Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, saying a Russian entry “would bring the competition into disrepute”.
Russian state broadcasters were suspended from the organisation soon afterwards. This has led to accusations of a double standard. But executives from broadcasters in Slovenia and Spain have since hinted that they support the idea that no country at war should be allowed to enter. This stance, if shared, would potentially exclude Ukraine as well as Israel.
Opponents of the Israel-related boycott, meanwhile, have also argued that Eurovision artists should not, on principle, be equated with their governments or held responsible for their actions.
Is the division over Israel the biggest threat to Eurovision yet?
Yes. When the EBU was set up in 1950, Europe was still in a state of postwar disarray. The idea was to encourage co-operation between nations from what is known as the European Broadcasting Area (which has never totally aligned with what we think of as “Europe”).
Currently led by former RTÉ director general Noel Curran and with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the organisation is best known for the song contest, but it also negotiates on behalf of publicly owned broadcasters for sports rights, and it facilitates the sharing of video news footage.
It first staged Eurovision with just seven countries in 1956, with Ireland entering for the first time in 1965 and Israel in 1973. The song contest has grown in scale since then, and it remains very popular across much of Europe despite the continuing backlash over Israel’s inclusion.
Although five countries are boycotting the event this year, the total number of entrants is down by just two to 35 as Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania have returned to the contest after short absences.
What else is new this year?
The EBU has tightened its voting and campaigning rules following fears of “some undue promotion, particularly by third parties, perhaps governments” last year, when Israel topped the public vote and finished second overall.
The maximum number of votes that fans can cast has been halved from 20 to 10. Juries have also returned to the semi-finals, having not been used at this stage since the discovery of “irregular voting patterns” in the scores awarded by six juries – those of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and San Marino – in 2022.
The organisers have banned campaigns by third parties, including governments and government agencies.
Will this work?
The concern is that mass-voting exercises will continue, casting further doubt on the integrity of the competition.
Martin Green, director of the Eurovision Song Contest, revealed on Saturday that a formal warning letter has been issued to Kan, the Israeli broadcaster, after videos with an on-screen instruction to “vote 10 times for Israel” were published and released by its representative, singer Noam Bettan, in advance of his participation in Tuesday’s semi-final.
Green said the EBU was “satisfied” that the video was not a large-scale campaign funded by a third party, but he also said the direct call to action to vote 10 times for Bettan’s song was “not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition”.
He added that the activity identified could not affect the overall result. “Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to Kan and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed.”
So, could Israel win Eurovision?
Yes, though the bookies’ favourites are Finland and its representatives Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, with their song Liekinheitin, meaning “flamethrower”.
