Eurovision 2021: A total of 183 million viewers watched this year's contest
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After last year's break the Eurovision Song Contest returned in 2021 and confirmed its title as the biggest live music event in the world by having 183 million viewers worldwide tuning in the event.
Rotterdam made it happen and despite the ongoing difficult covid-19 circumstances achieved to bring back on our screens the planet's most popular show in a spectacular way, attracting circa 183 million viewers acrros the world from 36 markets.
But let's take a look from different aspects of the viewing figures accomplished in this year's edition:
The live shows and audience
First of all , the Grand Final live show of the 65th Contest saw, on average, a 4 percentage point increase of the TV audience share comparing to the last Contest in 2019 of 40.5% - more than double the average primetime viewing share for the same group of channels (19.4%).
They say the future lays on the younger generations, a group on which the competition can rely on for glorious future times as the Contest was a massive hit with young audiences. The viewing share of the Grand Final among 15–24-year-olds was up 7 percentage points comparing to the 2019 edition. 52.8% of that age group watching TV at that time tuned in, which is 4 times higher than the broadcast channels average (14.5%).
Massive numbers for the Online and social media audience
Online, during the Eurovision week 50.6 million unique viewers from 234 countries watched on the official YouTube channel the shows, which marks a 28% increase to the one of 2019. 18–34-year-olds made up 71% of those who viewed live content.
The same period the Contest’s official social media accounts generated 14 million engagement actions on posts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok). The new TikTok channel also generated 4.3 million engagement actions.
Content on the official Facebook page reached 21 million people with a further 8 million people reached on Instagram where posts were seen 170 million times. Nearly 5 million tweets about the Contest were sent on the night of the Grand Final with almost 80 million total views on Twitter for videos related to Eurovision during the week of the event.
The countries
In the winning country, Italy, the ESC delivered its largest audience for Rai since they re-joined the competition after a 13-year absence in 2011. An average of 4.3 million viewers watched the Grand Final, accounting for 24.4% of TV viewing in the country.
Host country the Netherlands saw their biggest audience for the Grand Final on record**, up +21% on 2019. 5.4 million viewers watched on NPO, who staged the event with NOS and AVROTROS. The huge audience made up 78.5% of TV viewing in the Netherlands.
France, who came 2nd in the Contest for the first time since 1991, delivered its best audience of the past decade, with 5.5 million viewers, up 15% on 2019.
7.4 million viewers watched in the United Kingdom – the highest number since 2014 and up 6% on 2019.
Germany continues to deliver the largest audience of all markets for the 11th consecutive year with 7.8 million viewers, up 3% on 2019.
4th placed Iceland once again had the largest viewing share of any market at 99.9%.
Finland made it to the Grand Final after a year’s absence in 2019 and delivered its best audience on record** with 1.4 million viewers, accounting for 81.4% of TV viewing in Finland. Almost 3 times the audience delivered in 2019.
You can also check out more viewing figures from the competing countries in our respective previous post on ESC 2021 TV viewing figures.
EBU's Executive Supervisor of the contest, Martin Osterdahl, expressed his excitement on the numbers saying:
“We’re thrilled to see that audiences welcomed back the Eurovision Song Contest in such huge numbers and very proud to have brought millions together at a time when so many are still apart,”
And went on adding:
“The overwhelmingly positive response to this year’s incredible shows from NPO, NOS and AVROTROS, and the huge success of Måneskin and so many of this year’s songs demonstrates that, even in its 65th year, the Eurovision Song Contest’s impact is bigger than ever.”
The Executive Producer – Event for this year’s contest, Sietse Bakker, outlines the proudness for the team that made it happen in Rotterdam by saying:
“There were 1,624 people in the credits. They have worked very hard over the past weeks, months, two years to create these incredible shows in this bizarre and unreal time." He also emphasized the enormous commitment that all participating EBU Members made to ensure that all artists could actually be on stage in Rotterdam.
“Thanks to their trust in our organization, the Eurovision Song Contest is back again: with strong performances live on stage and ultimately a fantastic winner”.
The viewing numbers and the audiences confirm only one thing about the contest, that the show has even more glorious days to see in the future! Well done and a big thank you to EBU, the Dutch broadcastest, the creative team and all of those volunteers that made it happen in Rotterdam!
News Source: EBU/Eurovision.tv