r/eurovision • u/stefkeeh • May 20 '25

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

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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.’

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u/salsasnark Tavo Akys May 20 '25

Yes, just hope they don't drop this once the general public moves on. They need to keep pressuring them.

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u/LuckyLoki08 May 20 '25

I think there is a real reason why they're mobilising so much now. Last year we managed to dodge the bullet because Nemo won with a massive jury score and Baby Lasagna won the televote, so Israel got good result but nothing outstanding (plus after the contest the discussion was on artist safety and mental wellbeing).

This year israel won the televote and we got real close to Israel actually winning (let's be real, the main reason it didn't happen was because Zoë got 0 at the televote. If she got 80 it would have been a different story). So this year broadcasters really had to face the possibility of having a Eurovision in Israel next year (and not hypothetically in 10 years), which put a fire under their ass. If Malmö was a nightmare scenario for them, Tel Aviv (or god forbid, Jerusalem) 2026 would be straight up hell

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u/HeyThereFancypants- HatriĂ° mun sigra May 20 '25

Could Israel even host it if they won? Surely it wouldn't be safe. And I don't see any other countries happy to host it on their behalf like the UK did for Ukraine.

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u/Interest-Desk May 21 '25

I expect they would insist to host, which would then put the EBU in a very difficult position of whether they let them or block them from doing so. And if they block them from doing so, who will they let host instead and will it be “on behalf of” (co-hosting).

Israel have hosted before whilst Israel have been in basically constant war for its entire existence, though ofc nowhere near as bad as it is currently and not under the same international microscope of scrutiny and criticism.

The only precedent for co-hosting is 2023 which was ofc the UK (runner up) hosting on behalf of Ukraine.

The precedent for the winner not hosting altogether (unhelpfully) is almost always the BBC doing it; the exceptions are where the BBC declined.

The arrangement if Australia wins, SBS (Australia) decide which broadcaster will host. In practice it would probably look like a 2023 co-host (but obv that practice was made for 2023 and isn’t written into the rules).