Due to boycotts over the inclusion of Israel<\/a>, the musical extravaganza will take place without Ireland<\/a>, the joint record-holder with most winning contributions, Spain and the Netherlands, traditionally Eurovision\u2019s fifth and sixth largest financial contributors, and Slovenia and Iceland.<\/p>\n It is an unprecedented moment in the contest\u2019s seven-decade history and could have long-term consequences for a spectacle under pressure to justify its costs in a time of cuts to public broadcasters.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the long term, financing Eurovision is going to become harder and harder as publicly funded broadcasting is coming under attack everywhere across Europe,\u201d said Irving Wolther, a cultural historian and long-running observer of the song contest. \u201cIn that context, the political rows don\u2019t help, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2025 grand final in the Swiss city of Basle was watched by a record 166 million people across the globe, but last year\u2019s three million year-on-year growth in viewing figures is likely to be annulled by the fact that this year\u2019s contest is subject to a media blackout in some of the countries engaged in a boycott over Israel\u2019s inclusion.<\/p>\n The finale will not be broadcast in Ireland, Slovenia and Spain, where just under 5.9 million viewers tuned into the spectacle in 2025. Instead, the Spanish broadcaster RTVE will screen its own musical special, while viewers in Ireland will be treated to an episode of the comedy Father Ted<\/a> and those in Slovenia to a series of programmes about Palestine.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Eurovision 2026: When is it on, who is boycotting and could Israel win?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Viewing figures are also expected to be down in the Netherlands and Iceland, where national broadcasters are showing the event but have declined to submit their own musical contestants.<\/p>\n The three nations that are returning to Eurovision after skipping the event in recent years, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, are unlikely to give the organising European Broadcasting Union (EBU) another televisual milestone to brag about.<\/p>\n The political row has rippled through the fan communities tied to the contest. One fan-site, Eurovision Hub, will not be covering the event, announcing at the end of last year that \u201cwe no longer feel aligned with the contest in its current state\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like the build-up this year has been a little bit kind of an anticlimax,\u201d said Paul Jordan, a historian of the song contest who said he had seen friendships forged through Eurovision love driven apart by the political row. \u201cEurovision is meant to be joyous. But this year it feels a little bit sad.\u201d<\/p>\n The five breakaway nations announced their boycott last December, after Israel received the all-clear to compete before participating broadcasters were given a vote on its inclusion.<\/p>\n It brought to a climax a tense stand-off that had been brewing since the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023 and Israel\u2019s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. Critics accuse the EBU of double standards since Russia<\/a> was barred from Eurovision in the aftermath of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in 2022.<\/p>\n In time for Eurovision\u2019s 70th anniversary, the EBU recently announced the format\u2019s expansion into the Asian market, with an inaugural Eurovision Song Contest Asia to take place in Bangkok, Thailand, on Saturday, November 14th.<\/p>\n For Vienna, Eurovision\u2019s director, Martin Green, has promised a spectacular show that will celebrate the contest\u2019s \u201cunique ability to bring people together across borders and generations\u201d. A new feature on the official Eurovision app will give diehard fans access to archival information including voting results and contestants spanning seven decades.<\/p>\n But it is questionable whether apolitical nostalgia will be the dominant mood on the streets of Vienna in the run-up to Saturday\u2019s final. As well as the contest\u2019s two semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday, the Austrian capital will host rallies both in support of and in protest against Israel\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n About 3,000 protesters are expected for a rally at Resselpark on Friday to mark Palestinian Nakba Day, to honour the more than 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war surrounding Israel\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n On the day of the grand finale itself, Vienna police said they were expecting about 3,000 people to take part in a protest march under the motto \u201cSolidarity with Palestine\u201d. A counterdemonstration entitled \u201c12 points against anti-Zionism \u2013 for Israel\u2019s participation at Eurovision\u201d has been registered for 50 to 100 participants.<\/p>\n According to a recent survey for the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, 26 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement that the song contest \u201cbrought Europe more closely together\u201d, while 52 per cent said hosting the event was too expensive for Austria.<\/p>\n At the last two editions, geopolitics has not just manifested itself in the form of protests around the contest\u2019s venues, but also the songs being performed on stage.<\/p>\n In 2024, the Israeli contestant Eden Golan was cleared to compete by the EBU after changing the lyrics to her song Hurricane. Its original title, October Rain, was thought to reference the Hamas attacks of October 7th and had been barred for breaking rules on political neutrality.<\/p>\n The country\u2019s 2025 contestant, Yuval Raphael, was a survivor of the Nova festival attack, and the lyrics of her power ballad New Day Will Rise appeared to reference her traumatic ordeal.<\/p>\n In both editions of the contest Israel performed strongly in the public vote, but the Israeli government\u2019s heavy promotion of its acts through its social media channels prompted criticism.<\/p>\n Voting rule changes for the 2026 edition mean the maximum number of votes will be reduced from 20 to 10 per payment route, such as online, text message or phone call.<\/p>\n In Vienna, Israel will be represented by 28-year-old Noam Bettan. The announcement of his song, Michelle, initially prompted speculation that it could pay reference to Michelle Rukovicin, a female soldier who was heavily wounded in the October 7th attacks and left in a coma, but recovered and married her long-term partner last year.<\/p>\n The song\u2019s actual lyrics, sung in French, Hebrew and English, make that theory sound far-fetched, however, dealing as it does with the performer\u2019s \u201ctoxic love\u201d to a woman he calls \u201cthe queen of problems\u201d.<\/p>\n Bookmakers have Israel\u2019s entry as fifth favourite, with Finland\u2019s dramatic ballad Liekinheitin, by Linda Lampenius and Pete Parkkonen, leading the field. Other mooted winners include the Greek rapper Akylas\u2019s bouncy party anthem Ferto and the Danish singer S\u00f8ren Torpegaard Lund\u2019s F\u00f8r Vi G\u00e5r Hjem.<\/p>\n The British entrant, Look Mum No Computer, is seen as having only an outside chance of winning, with his song Eins, Zwei, Drei priced at 80\/1 with William Hill. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was meant to be the crowning moment of a seemingly never-ending success story: the 70th anniversary of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10569,10495,42,46,43,34778,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-437700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-european-broadcasting-union","tag-eurovision","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-rte","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/A3PES3F6FVDC3NBRJ2B6SG2D2M.jpg\")
A demonstration against Israel’s candidate prior to the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 in Basel. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Mascot](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/JOH5ZRLP6GFJC6G4B7XKNYGFYQ.jpg\")
Mascot Auri and presenters during a dress rehearsal for the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2026. Photograph: Tobias Schwarz\/Getty <\/p>\n![\"Israel's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/TENECJOVKNCLVJX22NYHXGRIPI.jpg\")
Israel’s Yuval Raphael at the Eurovision Song Contest opening ceremony in Basle, Switzerland, in May 2025. Photograph: Sebastian Reuter\/Getty Images <\/p>\n