Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Iceland and Ireland recently announced that they will not participate in next year's Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna. The reason is that Israel is allowed to compete despite the war in Gaza.
Public service broadcasters in all countries except Iceland have told SVT that they will not broadcast the competition. According to the channel, this means that approximately 74 million Europeans will not be able to follow the competition via their home country's public service broadcaster.
"There is still great interest in Eurovision in Iceland, and therefore it is important that our audience has the opportunity to watch the program with Icelandic commentators," writes Stefán Eiriksson at the Icelandic public service broadcaster RÚV in an email to SVT's Kulturnyheterna.
British ESC expert Paul Jordan predicts reduced sponsorship revenue in the coming years, but tells SVT that he expects many from the boycotting countries to watch the competition on YouTube.
