The EBU has reported its viewing figure information for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with a number of remarkable achievements for the grand final of the 2021 contest.
The overall figure of 183 million viewers is counted across 36 markets, with online engagement and social media interaction relating to the contest soaring on 2019 levels.
On average, the market share of the TV audience watching the Eurovision 2021 final on May 22nd was four points higher than in 2019, and more than double the average primetime viewing share for the group of channels the EBU bases its data on.
Encouragingly, the contest was also a hit among younger audiences, up seven points on 2019 and with over half of the 15-24 year old bracket watching TV on that Saturday night tuned in to the contest – four times higher than the average rating.
The official YouTube stream of the contest saw great success, with 50.6 million unique viewers across 234 countries and territories, up 28% on the stream of the 2019 contest.
Eurovision’s social media reach also improved, with 14 million engagements across their posts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, signifying the increasing role of social media in the spread of awareness about the contest and how the younger audience interacts with Europe’s favourite competition.
Improvements in viewing figures were also recorded individually for a number of this year’s participating countries as Eurovision made its triumphant return – notably seeing increases in Italy, Netherlands, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Finland. Iceland’s love affair with the competition continued, with a staggering 99.9% market share of TV viewers in the country watching the contest.
“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 in a time when so many are still apart”, executive supervisor Martin Österdahl remarked, “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”.
Executive producer of the 2021 contest Sietse Bakker has also paid tribute to the incredible work of the production team of the competition; “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.”
Source: EBU/eurovision.tv
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