Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands and Slovenia will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.
They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.
Despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.
Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE said it felt that its “participation remains unconscionable given the appalling loss of lives in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there which continues to put the lives of so many civilians at risk.”
In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that “participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values that are essential to us”.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: “The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it.”
“This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final… nor the preliminary semi-finals.”
Continue reading here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde6d8wyp79o
What consequences? That they won’t win this year either?
Oh, you mean the EBU probably. One of the Big 5 leaving is really something. I can’t imagine Spain leaving the EBU itself though.
Iceland, Belgium, and Portugal are likely to leave as well, with the Polish Culture minister calling for a boycott if Israel participates a few months ago. The more countries that drop, the more expensive it will be to participate for the remaining countries as well.
I don’t think the boycotting countries will leave the EBU or stop paying for their membership.
No, but the participants still have to pay a lot towards the show. They don’t just get to piggy back off of the host amd Big 5. There are participation fees that cover the EBU expenses. Those have to be covered in by the participation fees
The point of ESC is to get around 9 hours of content for much cheaper than broadcasters can normally do.
So for example, at the highest end of participation in the big 5, the BBC pays a fee of £300,000, and about the same again for production costs such as delegation hotels. That’s about the price of 2 hours’ worth of EastEnders. Per hour, its the cost of a mid-range game show.
In total, the fees reach around £5 million. The host nation’s broadcaster is then on the hook for the rest of the cost, which is usually an additional £8-18m. Effectively, unless everyone quits and there’s no-one to compete, ORF will be expected to cover any shortfall caused by the boycott.
One of the Big Five (they are the largest financial contributors) leaving is, financially, indeed something.
As the ESC is only one part of the EBU (yet the most prominent one for the public) beside sharing of media, news and technical collaboration, leaving the EBU completely over the israeli participation at the ESC would give that occassion way too much relevance.
whilst i agree, i think it’s also important to acknowledge that non-participation in ESC isn’t about non-participation in ESC… it’s not like they’re not participating because they don’t like israel’s songs; it’s about a principal. if the decision was made about israel to do with ESC it says something about the EBUs values and how it’s being run
non-participation isn’t meant as a punishment, and it’s not even really about ESC: it’s meant to be a statement to the EBU as a whole: we don’t support this and won’t support anyone who does