It was meant to be the crowning moment of a seemingly never-ending success story: the 70th anniversary of the world\u2019s biggest and ever-expanding live music event, held in a city steeped in history both dramatic and musical.<\/p>\n
But as Vienna gears up to host this year\u2019s Eurovision song contest, which starts on Tuesday and culminates in Saturday\u2019s grand final, euphoria will be hard to come by outside the power ballads performed onstage.<\/p>\n
Due to boycotts over the inclusion of Israel<\/a>, the musical extravaganza will take place without Spain and the Netherlands, traditionally Eurovision\u2019s fifth and sixth largest financial contributors, Ireland, the joint record-holder with most winning contributions, 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 Journalists at the Eurovision media centre in Vienna. Photograph: Helmut Fohringer\/APA\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/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<\/a>,\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 Basel was watched by a record 166 million people across the globe, but last year\u2019s 3 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 the animated family comedy Mummies<\/a> and those in Slovenia to a series of programmes about Palestine.<\/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 Dara, representing Bulgaria, walks the \u2018turquoise carpet\u2019 in Vienna. Photograph: Lisa Leutner\/Reuters<\/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<\/a> 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 buildup 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 break-away nations announced their boycott last December<\/a>, after Israel received the all-clear to compete before participating broadcasters were given a vote on its inclusion.<\/p>\n