Planet Earth, get ready for the madness that is Eurovision! A taste of Eurovision took hold at the StreamTV Europe industry’s inaugural event in Lisbon, Portugal on Tuesday, thanks to a session titled: ‘Original Song Contest: A Eurovision Case Study’.
Now, the US gets a free option to follow all the fun and fury of the annual singing competition, through YouTube. Jurian van der Meer, commercial director of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which oversees all commercial and business activities related to the Eurovision Song Contest, announced the news during the session that YouTube has struck a deal for the event, starting with this year’s 70th anniversary edition, which will be held in Vienna, Austria. The deal covers the semifinals and final, and is also already available in the US to Peacock subscribers.
Until now, “we haven’t had a real strategy for distributing our content” in the long term, including national selections, Van der Meer said on the Lisbon stage. Now, free streaming on YouTube in the US will change that. The semi-final matches will be held on May 12 and 14, followed by the final on May 16.
The CEO said THR After the session YouTube actually broadcast the song contest last year, but that was not yet widely known. He said the YouTube deal covers the world, excluding select markets where local broadcasters have chosen not to share the event with the live streaming platform, including the UK and Australia.
On stage, Van der Meer on Tuesday also addressed the latest conflict at this year’s Eurovision contest over the controversy over last year’s public vote in Israel and Israel’s inclusion amid the Gaza war. While the controversy led to changes in the rules, five countries decided to boycott this year’s edition. They are Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain. These five countries did not send representatives to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, but two of them, the Netherlands and Iceland, will broadcast the event.
“Unfortunately, politics comes up from time to time,” Van der Meer explained. “Music is what we’re going to get [our] focus on. “We welcome everyone, but we also understand and respect…that people have certain points of view.”
Tuesday’s Eurovision panel, hosted by international cartographer Ivan Shapiro, also included Felipe Leggero, who works on digital strategy for Da Cançao Festivalone of Portugal’s longest-running television shows and the country’s national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, said: “Eurovision for us is a really good global platform,” explaining that Portugal’s Eurovision entry last year, the band NAPA, is now one of the country’s most important music acts.
Yigit Dogan Celik, Chairman and CEO of Merzigo Global, a media technology company focused on distributing and monetizing premium film, television and digital content across open video platforms, also praised the global opportunity of the song contest.
Van der Meer also highlighted the EBU’s recent deal with Voxovation, S2O Productions and Thailand’s Channel 3 to stage Asia’s inaugural Eurovision Song Contest in Bangkok on 14 November. Shapiro asked: Shouldn’t this competition be called Asiavision? “There’s a little bit of debate,” the executive admitted.
