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Decline of tens of millions of viewers: the heavy price of Russia's expulsion from the Eurovision Song Contest - Walla! culture

2022-03-02T05:01:41.106Z


The removal of Russia from the old singing competition will not lead to Putin's withdrawal from Ukraine and the end of the war, but it is another part of the global cultural boycott of Moscow.


Decline of tens of millions of viewers: the heavy price of Russia's expulsion from the Eurovision Song Contest

The removal of Russia from the old singing competition will not lead to Putin's withdrawal from Ukraine and the end of the war, but it is another part of the global cultural boycott of Moscow.

And what will happen to the number of viewers around the world?

And why should Israel not be so afraid?

Yaniv Dornbush concludes a stormy Eurovision week

Yaniv Dornbush

02/03/2022

Wednesday, 02 March 2022, 06:26 Updated: 06:47

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The moment when Michael Ben-David won the X Factor final of the Eurovision Song Contest (Photo: Network 13)

This weekend we reported to you on a drama in the Eurovision world: the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has eliminated Russia from the longtime singing competition.

Of course the cynical reactions were not long in coming, most with sharp and witty humor like "Aww, now Putin is sure to withdraw from Ukraine, bring Crimea back, and also put Moscow on the road", really worthy of writing a sketch in "The Jews Are Coming".

But, this is something much deeper than participating in a song contest that was originally created to unite the divided Europe of after the previous World War.



In recent days Russia has been kicking out of the family of nations, unless your people are Iran, China, or North Korea.

The world is kicking Russia out of the political field, shutting down airspace, and yes, it is also boycotting the worlds of leisure, culture and sports.

There may not be a situation where international committees and sports federations expel Russia but at the Eurovision it continues to perform.

It is unthinkable a situation where a country commits serious war crimes but its singer will come and sing that each of us has a special voice and we are all together a million voices.

This move may not end the war, it probably will not even affect it, but in front of about 180 million people around the world - it is an important and necessary step.

The number of viewers will drop.

Putin (Photo: AP)

And if we have already mentioned the number 180 million, this is a good opportunity to mention that Russia's expulsion from Eurovision 2022 will greatly hurt the number of spectators in the competition.

Let's go back in time, the year 2016, the Eurovision takes place in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, our star debt impresses the judges and then gets a nod to the face in the audience vote.

That same year Russia and Ukraine wage a screaming war of attrition between them, which is still better than a bloody war.

Russia sends one of its favorite singers, Sergei Lazarev, while for the Russians there is only one option: a second victory for their country.

But the one who steals the victory is Jamala who represents Ukraine from which she fled this week following the fighting.



Russia is doing some tricks in the following Eurovision year, trilling the European Broadcasting Union with the selection of a singer who is on Ukraine's blacklist, and to make it look like Ukraine is the bad country in this story, the chosen singer is Yulia Smoilova who suffers from muscular dystrophy.

In this way it is possible to show Europe how militaristic Ukraine humiliates pluralistic Russia on the back of a singer with special needs.

In the end, Smoilova does not come to Ukraine, Russia withdraws from the competition, and with it the ratings fall.

204 million men and women watched the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, only 180 million watched in 2017.

When Russia returned in 2018 it did not reach the final because it sent Smoilova again with a particularly horrific song, but the viewing figures improved and reached 186 million viewers.



If we divide the number of spectators at the last Eurovision in Rotterdam by country, we will find that Russia is the seventh country in the number of spectators, with about 3.5 million.

This means that Eurovision 2022 starts with minus three and a half million viewers, and maybe much more than that if we add the Ukrainians, who knows which of them will even want to watch the competition, if they will participate in it at all.

More on Walla!

The effect of the Russian attack: Ukraine jumps to the top of the Eurovision betting table

To the full article

Shuffling.

Ben David (Photo: Screenshot, Network 13)

"But Israel is also a criminal! They will also expel us!"

Quite a few talkbackers, and even columnists elsewhere warn: Israelis should not rejoice at the expulsion of Russia, Israel may be a villa in the jungle but it is a glass villa, and in this jungle it is too hot to walk with butter on your head, especially when the jungle is desert east - High school.

Let me cool down on this issue as well and lower the level of fear and intimidation.



First, demonstrations against Israel have been, are, and will be all the time.

Sometimes they are big, sometimes they are small, sometimes the demonstrators find that the only reporters who cover them come from Israel, sometimes they are joined by local masses.

But it is also important to note the deep differences between the wars: Israel has not occupied a sovereign state and Russia does, the Ukrainians do not launch missiles at Russia and the Palestinians do, Palestine is not part of the international telecommunications organization nor the European Broadcasting Union and Ukraine does.

And yes, there is a certain weight also to the fact that one situation happens on European soil and after takes place overseas.

True, the citizen who demonstrates these things is interested in very specific areas of the body, but CEOs of broadcasters know how to make the distinction.



If Israel enters Gaza with tanks at a time when the Palestinians are keeping quiet, you will ignore everything I have written - the Nordic countries will already take care to use the resolution against Russia.

But in cases of such and other operations on low-medium fire?

The continuum that Russia has set is much much higher.

Is Russia's deportation a precedent?

Ask Yugoslavia

The Eurovision Song Contest has a history of accepting not very democratic countries for competition.

In 1961, Spain joined the singing competition under Franco's dictatorial rule.

The EBU were not thrilled by the criticism and also let the Spaniards host in 1969 after their victory the previous year.

Austria decided to boycott the competition that year because Spain was under dictatorial rule.

This is a great example of how politics at Eurovision has always been, and also of the fact that not everything is political - a year earlier Austria had given Spain two points, and Spain had won by one point.



In the same 1961, Yugoslavia also joined the Eurovision Song Contest despite being a communist.

Yugoslavia regularly participated in the Eurovision Song Contest except 1977-1980 and again in 1985, so it missed both of our wins.

After the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest, the remnants of the state were expelled from the competition following severe sanctions resulting from the wars in the Balkans.

On further thought one could even say that the measures against Russia are not entirely unprecedented.

Russian representative for Eurovision 2021 (Photo: screenshot, screenshot)

Who even has a desire for Eurovision?

Among everything that is happening on the old continent these days, the question arises as to who even has the desire for the Eurovision Song Contest.

After all, even when the songs are bad, and this year really bad songs await you (can I be polite?), This is a real TV celebration.

This celebration goes beyond the boundaries of television with street parties, Euroclub parties, and after last year amateurs were not allowed to come to event complexes - this year they are back.

Europe, which was supposed to emerge from the difficult phase of the pandemic, was supposed to celebrate again, but its eastern part is on fire.

How will it be possible to justify shows, parties and fireworks in one part of the continent, when the other part is burning?



God forbid I do not call for the cancellation of the competition, but if by any chance there is someone in the European Broadcasting Union who thinks "well let's skip it, we'll go back to Italy next year", I'm sure there will be quite a few people in the corporation who will breathe a sigh of relief.

As Israel and Michael Ben-David move between 36th and 37th place in the odds of winning the betting agencies, out of 40 countries, we got another reason to make a fast-forward to 2023.

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Source: walla

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