As we all know, the Eurovision Song Contest is the biggest music competition on earth. Even though an impressive number of 37 countries are participating this year, the viewership of the contest goes way beyond these ones. Many non-participating countries also broadcast at least the final show on May 13th. Some of them also show the two semifinals on May 9th & 11th. Let’s take a closer look at some of them:
North Macedonia
North Macedonia has already participated in the adult Eurovision contest 23 times with their debut in 1996 where Kaliopi failed the qualification round. Their last participation was last year in 2022 with Andrea and her song “Circles” where she just missed to qualify for the final (11th position with 76 points). Due to financial reasons and the UK being quite an expensive country, the responsible channel MRT1 unfortunately decided to stay away from this year’s competition. However, they still competeted at the Junior Contest in December 2022 and already confirmed their participation for 2023 in Nice. In addition to that, MRT1 is also going to broadcast all three shows which indicates that North Macedonia still has huge interest in the contest and is expected to be back to the competition very soon. After the introduction of the new voting rules, people from North Macedonia are also able to vote in the “Rest of the world” voting.
Slovakia
Slovakia is also a country which had participated in the past. In contrast to North Macedonia though, they only took part 8 times with their last participation in 2012 with the song “Don’t Close Your Eyes” by Max Jason Mai and one of the worst track records for a country with an 18th place (1996) as their best finish. Even though a lack of interest has been stated as the reason to obstain from the competition, the broadcasting of the final show with the commentators Daniel Baláž, Lucia Haverlík, Pavol Hubinák and Juraj Malíček are an indicator that the responsible broadcaster RTVS may return to the show at some point.
USA
The United States of America are the biggest non-participating country that is going to broadcast the contest on Peacock by NBC. Especially after the Netflix movie “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga” as well as the American adaption “American Song Contest”, the origin of these producitions got more attention to the big American audience. Even though the ASC got cancelled after the first season based on poor viewership with AleXa from Oklahoma, as the winner the established fanbase in America is still going to enjoy the Eurovision Song Contest live with Johnny Weir as the commentator.
Chile
Chile is the most recent country which is going to broadcast the final of the contest on Canal13. In the past, Canal13 has already broadcasted the famous Sanremo festival in Italy for the very first time in 1975. This competition also functions for determine the Italian representative for Eurovision and is considered as the prototype show of the Eurovision Song Contest.
Hungary does not broadcast the show
As you can see, countries from Europe and all over the world show interest in the Eurovision Song Contest. However, some previous Eurovison countries do not even show the contest anymore. Hungary is one of them. Their last particiaption was in 2019 with Josi Pápai. Due to a non-qualification as well as political reasons, Hungary still organise their previous national selection “A Dal”. However, the show stands on it’s own now without any connection to Eurovision anymore. This indicates that Hungary most likely won’t return to the contest anytime soon.
Which non-participating country would you like to see broadcasting the show anyways? Let us know down in the comments!
Photo credits: MRT
Eurovision.de
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