Advanced Television

182m watch 64th Eurovision Song Contest

May 28, 2019

The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), the world’s biggest live music event, was seen by 182 million viewers in 2019 across 40 markets, according to Eurodata TV.

The Grand Final achieved, on average, a one percentage point higher TV audience share year on year of 36.7 per cent – more than double the average prime-time viewing share for the same group of channels (16.7 per cent).

In the winning country, the Netherlands, the ESC delivered its largest audience for NPO/AVROTROS since 2014. An average of 4.5 million viewers watched the Grand Final, accounting for 73.4 per cent of TV viewing in the country.

Host broadcaster KAN’s audience for the Grand Final was up 24  per cent on 2018, with 1.3 million viewers tuning in. This made it the country’s biggest ESC audience since it last hosted in 1999, accounting for 63.2 per cent of TV viewing in Israel.

Younger audiences are watching the Eurovision Song Contest in ever greater numbers too.

On average, 45.3 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds watching TV in 40 markets enjoyed the Grand Final; 2 percentage points higher than 2018 and four times higher than the broadcast channels average (11.7 per cent).

RAI in Italy delivered its second-best audience since re-joining the Contest in 2011 with 3.4 million viewers, up 5 per cent on 2018.

Germany’s ARD saw the highest average viewing figures of any market for the 9th consecutive year (7.6 million).

Iceland continues to deliver the largest viewing share of any market at 98.4 per cent. With the country making it to the Grand Final for the first time since 2014, RUV enjoyed their best viewing share in 5 years (98.6 per cent in 2014).

Switzerland also made it to the Grand Final for the first time in 5 years. RTS, RSI and SRF more than doubled their audience year on year. The German speaking part of the country delivered its best audience since 2006 with 0.7 million viewers watching, accounting for 49.6 per cent of viewing.

Online, the Eurovision Song Contest had 40 million unique viewers on YouTube from 225 territories, during the week of the event.

Some 72 per cent of live show viewing on YouTube was by the under 35s.

There were also 5 million engagement actions on the Eurovision Song Contest official social media accounts with 70 per cent of those on Instagram.

The Grand Final of the 64th Eurovision Song Contest was also broadcast by 13 EBU Radio organisations.

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