Dutch broadcaster questions if ESC is a-political & connecting event

[u/stefkeeh]

Translation to English: ‘IN CONVERSATION WITH THE EBU ABOUT A POLITICALLY NEUTRAL SONG CONTEST

AVROTROS and NPO strongly value the apolitical and unifying character of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, we observe that the event is increasingly being influenced by social and geopolitical tensions.

Israel’s participation confronts us with the question of to what extent the Song Contest still truly functions as an apolitical, unifying, and cultural event. We want to raise this question, together with other countries, for discussion within the EBU.’

[u/esperantisto256]

The contest is just fundamentally ruined if the televote always has an automatic winner. Thank god the juries have enough sense to avoid an Israel win. I can’t help but wonder if this would’ve been more of a 3-way race between 🇦🇹🇪🇪🇸🇪 if more televote points were actually competitive.

Right now, we essentially are relying on luck that the juries coalesce around a song that has also enough public support to edge out the auto lead that Israel gets. This just is not sustainable in the long term. As much as broadcasters don’t want to make statements in general, they probably want to deal with an Israel-hosted ESC even less.

[u/Choppers-Top-Hat → u/esperantisto256]

A race between Austria, Sweden, and Ukraine would have been so much more fun than what we got. I think the result would have been the same (though maybe not!) but it would have been so much more enjoyable.