The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) issued a formal warning to Israeli broadcaster KAN on Saturday after promotional videos featuring Israel’s Eurovision participant, Noam Bettan, urged viewers to vote 10 times for his entry, “Michelle.” Eurovision director Martin Green said the EBU was alerted to the videos on Friday and contacted the KAN delegation within 20 minutes, asking them to remove the content from all platforms. KAN complied immediately.
The videos were recorded by Bettan in 12 languages: Azerbaijani, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian. They got flagged by Eurovision fan sites as potentially violating new voting rules adopted by EBU members last November. Those rules discourage “disproportionate promotion campaigns, particularly when undertaken or supported by third parties, including governments or governmental agencies.”
Green said the EBU was satisfied the videos were not part of a large-scale funded third-party campaign but said a direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with the rules nor the spirit of the competition. However, a source close to the delegation pointed out that similar advertising campaigns were being run by other contestants, including those from Malta and Romania.
The warning arrives in the first year of sweeping voting reforms introduced following controversy over Israel’s strong televote performances in the 2024 and 2025 contests. The changes include reducing the maximum number of public votes per fan from 20 to 10, the return of professional juries to the semi-finals for the first time since 2022, and enhanced technical safeguards against fraudulent voting.
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Israel’s participation has prompted broadcasters in Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia and Ireland to withdraw from the 2026 contest entirely. Bettan is set to perform Michelle in the first semi-final on Tuesday, May 12, competing for a spot in the grand final on Saturday, May 16.