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/
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.
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.
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?
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.