Following the release of all the viewing figures for the Eurovision Song Contest 2023, the EBU have calculated that 162 million viewers watched the contest.
Over three live broadcasts in 38 markets, the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 attracted 162 million viewers. The viewing share of the Grand Final on Saturday 13 May was 40.9%, which remains more than double the broadcast channels average (17.4%).
The largest audience was delivered by the United Kingdom, the host country, with an average of 9.9 million viewers watching the Grand Final on BBC One, peaking at 11 million, up 12% on 2022, with a 63% share of viewers. The BBC claim this is the largest viewed Grand Final on record, but this has been disputed by fans online, citing the figures for many of the early 1970s contests.
The second largest audience was delivered, as usual, by Germany, despite finishing last. 7.4 million viewers tuned into the Grand Final, up 14% on last year. France, another Big 5 country, managed to increase 10% on 2022, reaching 3.5 million viewers.
The winners of the contest, Sweden, managed to deliver an average audience of 2.3 million, with an audience share of a phenomenal 82.3% of all viewers. Sweden delivered the fourth highest audience share overall, being led by Iceland (98.7%), Norway (87.8%) and Finland (85.6%). Finland also manage to deliver their highest audience since Helsinki 2007, which they hosted, with a 1.7 million viewers, a whopping 71% higher than 2022.
The Eurovision Song Contest has proved, once again, that public service media has the power to unite the world through music with a global reach we are hugely proud of. We’re thrilled to see that every year more and more people around the world discover this special event and that it is providing a huge launchpad for new music.
Martin Österdahl, Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest
It wasn’t just television that saw viewers tuning in far and wide for the contest though. On the worldwide YouTube livestream, 7.6 million people watched the Grand Final live, with about 3.2 million live viewers for each of the Semi Finals. Likewise on TikTok, their livestream saw 4.8 million live viewers for each show.
One of the most impressive statistics is just how well the Eurovision Song Contest performs with the younger demographic. The overall average viewership for television amongst 15-24 year olds is 13.8%, the lowest across the board, but the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 saw a share of 53.5% across this demographic.
Overall, the contest is up 1 million viewers on Turin 2022, which delivered 161 million viewers. Despite being significantly down on recent history, previously reaching around 180-200 million viewers every year, this is in large part due to the exclusion of Russian and Belarussian viewers, and in fact if those viewers are removed from previous years, then overall viewership is higher than ever.
