It has been confirmed that a total of 161 million tuned in to the Eurovision Song Contest 2022!
Eurovision.tv report that a total of 161 million people watched the 66th edition of The Eurovision Song Contest on television across all three shows, and the shows Executive Producer Martin Österdahl couldn’t be happier with this news.
“We couldn’t be happier to see the success of the Eurovision Song Contest across all our members’ channels and on our digital platforms this year. Once again, we have seen the enormous popularity of the Contest among young audiences, some of whom are discovering the event for the first time. The Eurovision Song Contest truly has global appeal demonstrated by the millions watching in every territory on earth and millions more interacting on social media.”
A decrease from 2021?
Eagle-eyed fans will notice that this years viewership of 161 million is down by 12 million from 2021, when 183 million people tuned in to watch the contest live from Rotterdam. However, all is not what it seems, and the EBU offers a very logical explanation for this.
As Russia were banned from this years Eurovision Song Contest, the country did not broadcast the contest. On top of this, Ukraine’s viewership was not counted for this year. In 2021, both Russia and Ukraine accounted for around 29 million views. So it’s fair to say that the overall viewing figures for Eurovision 2022 have been impacted by this.
On top of this, there are also a number of participating countries who have yet to confirm their viewing figures to the EBU. Albania, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Israel, Malta, Montenegro, North Macedonia and San Marino have not revealed how many people tuned in to Eurovision 2022.
We're going up up up up up up up!
With it being ten days since the Grand Final of Eurovision 2022, many European countries (plus Australia) have revealed their viewing figures for the show, and there have been some pleasant surprises along the way, most notably from within the Big 5.
Spain and the United Kingdom recorded their highest viewing figures for the contest in many years. 6,835,000 people tuned into La 1 in Spain, making it the highest viewership for a Eurovision final since 2008. Over in the United Kingdom, an average of 8.9 million (with a peak of 10.6 million) people tuned into the BBC on Saturday night, bringing with them the highest viewing figures since 2011.
Australia, France, Norway, Portugal, Romania and Italy, among others, all saw great viewing figures for the contest, with the latter recording their highest viewing figures for Eurovision since they last hosted the contest in 1991.
Tik Tok gets off to a great start
For this years contest, the Eurovision Song Contest teamed up with popular social media site Tik Tok, (becoming the contest’s official Entertainment Partner), something that proved to be a great investment.
Official rehearsal clips from each artists’ first reharsals, plus all three live shows, were streamed on Tik Tok for the first time. During the two Eurovision weeks, the official Eurovision account on Tik Tok saw 189 million views on their videos.
A total of 3.3 million people tuned in to the Tik Tok stream of the Grand Final, whilst both semi finals have been streamed almost 4 million times so far.
During Eurovision week itself, the official Eurovision Tik Tok account saw an impressive 9.2 million engamenent actions. This includes liking, sharing and commenting on videos.
In comparision to Tik Tok, the Eurovision Song Contest’s official YouTube channel saw around 42.3 million views during Eurovision week, with viewers tuning in from 232 countries and territories around the world. The live stream of the Grand Final saw an impressive 7.6 million people tuning in, an increase of 50% from 2021. 2.2 million of these views came from people within Ukraine.
What are your thoughts on the viewing figures for Eurovision 2022? Do any of these figures surprise you? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
