Audience numbers
Controversial ESC attracts strong interest in 2024
163 million people watched the ESC. Photo
© Jens Büttner/dpa
A politically charged and chaotic Eurovision Song Contest will attract a lot of attention in 2024 – and reach more viewers than last year.
The controversial Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has met with strong audience interest in 2024. 163 million people watched the three live shows spread across the 37 broadcasters, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) announced. That is one million more viewers than last year in Liverpool and an increase of two million since the ESC 2022 in Turin.
Against the backdrop of the Gaza war, this year’s biggest music competition in the world was accompanied by loud protests and a politically charged atmosphere surrounding Israel’s participation. The surprise exclusion of the Netherlands on the day of the grand finale also caused great excitement.
Votes were cast from 156 countries worldwide. In Germany, an average of 8.1 million viewers watched the final. In Great Britain, the figure was 7.7 million people. France reached 5.4 million viewers, a full 1.9 million more than the previous year.
An average of 723,000 viewers from the three language regions watched from the winning country, Switzerland. According to the EBU, this was 40 percent more than the previous year and the highest number ever recorded.
The share of the young audience was particularly striking: among 15- to 24-year-olds, this was 58.6% in the final, the highest share ever. The competition also marked a milestone by reaching almost 500 million accounts on TikTok, quadrupling the reach compared to 2023, according to the EBU. The overall audience share for the grand final was 46.7 percent – the highest since 2006.