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186 million viewers for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest

23 May 2018 at 17:36 CEST
Netta from Israel wins the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest with Toy. Andres Putting
With around 186 million viewers the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest was once again the world’s biggest live music event. The EBU announced that earlier today.

The 2018 Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest achieved, on average, around the same TV audience share as 2017 of 35.8% - more than double the average prime-time viewing share for the same group of channels (15.3%).

Winning country Israel delivered its largest audience since 2005 on KAN. An average 1 million viewers watched the Grand Final, accounting for 50.9% of Israeli TV viewing.

Cyprus, which came second in Lisbon, had its best ever result and its highest audience on record (since 2003), with 250 thousand viewers accounting for 77.4% of Cypriot TV viewing.

Germany (ARD) saw the highest average viewing figures for the 8th consecutive year (7.7m). The UK's audience on BBC One was up 5% on 2017 with 7 million viewers on average tuning in. While France (France 2) had the highest viewing figures since 2009, up 10% on last year to 5.2 million.

Spain's LA1 delivered the largest increase in viewers year on year, almost doubling its 2017 audience to deliver 6.4m viewers (42.2% share). This made the country the third biggest market overall and RTVE's biggest Eurovision audience since 2008.

Host country Portugal's Grand Final audience was up 10% on 2017. 1.5 million Portuguese tuned in making it their biggest Eurovision audience since 2008 and giving host broadcaster RTP a 36.4% audience share.

Iceland once again delivered the largest viewing share of all the markets (95.3%), despite its entry not making it to the Grand Final for a fourth consecutive year.

The Eurovision Song Contest once again highlighted the ability of public service media to connect with young audiences. On average, 43.1% of 15-24 year olds watching TV in 42 markets enjoyed the Grand Final which is four times higher than the broadcast channels average of 10.6%.

Viewing share is also around four times higher than the broadcast channels average among Children (4-15 years olds; 35.1%/8.3%) and Young Adults (25-34 year olds; 35.4%/9.5%).

In addition, there were 6.6 million live streaming sessions in 198 territories across the three shows on the official YouTube channel, an increase of 10% compared to last year. 2.2 million unique viewers tuned in for the Grand Final on YouTube.

The Grand Final of the 63rd Eurovision Song Contest was also broadcast by thirteen EBU Radio organisations.

Ratings research was conducted by the EBU based on Eurodata TV’s and relevant partners’ data.