Artists are in Vienna for the Eurovision Song Contest but the public broadcasters for Ireland, Slovenia and Spain say they will not be showing it – Copyright APA\/AFP MAX SLOVENCIK<\/p>\n
The public broadcasters for Spain, Ireland and Slovenia said Monday they will not show the 70th anniversary Eurovision Song Contest this week, as they boycott the TV extravaganza over Israel\u2019s participation.<\/p>\n
The three countries, along with the Netherlands and Iceland, pulled out of this year\u2019s event in Vienna, which kicks off on Tuesday and culminates in Saturday\u2019s grand final.<\/p>\n
Controveresy has mounted over the conduct of Israel\u2019s war in the Gaza Strip and the tree are among five countries boycotting the event.<\/p>\n
Suspicions have been raised that the televoting system was being manipulated to boost Israel at Eurovision 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. Some broadcasters also raised concerns about media freedom, with Israel preventing their journalists from accessing Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of the Eurovision circus, the national television programme will be coloured by the thematic programme series \u2018Voices of Palestine\u2019,\u201d Slovenian broadcaster RTV said.<\/p>\n
During Thursday\u2019s second semi-final, Ireland\u2019s RTE will be showing \u201cThe End of the World with Beanz\u201d, featuring 1993 Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh in Norway experiencing life as a reindeer herder.<\/p>\n
And during the final, it will screen a Eurovision-themed episode of the popular 1990s Irish-made sitcom \u201cFather Ted\u201d.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s RTVE will run its own musical special, \u201cThe House of Music\u201d.<\/p>\n
Public service broadcasters in the Netherlands and Iceland will screen the competition, despite both pulling out.<\/p>\n
This year is the 70th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest, and the Austrian capital is pulling out all the stops to host the world\u2019s biggest live televised music event.<\/p>\n
Only 35 countries will take part in the show \u2014 the fewest since entry was expanded in 2004 \u2014 following the five withdrawals.<\/p>\n
First held in 1956, Eurovision is run by the European Broadcasting Union, the world\u2019s biggest alliance of public-service media.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International said that the EBU\u2019s failure to suspend Israel from Eurovision, as it did with Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, was \u201can act of cowardice and an illustration of blatant double standards\u201d.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s participation \u201coffers the country a platform to try to deflect attention from and normalise its ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip\u201d, Amnesty\u2019s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cSongs and sequins must not be allowed to drown out or distract from Israel\u2019s atrocities or Palestinian suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n
A UN-backed probe in September determined that \u201cgenocide is occurring in Gaza\u201d \u2013 something Israel vehemently denies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artists are in Vienna for the Eurovision Song Contest but the public broadcasters for Ireland, Slovenia and Spain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11350,4068,3385,3510,2064,17,7916],"class_list":["post-21243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-austria","tag-eurovision","tag-ireland","tag-music","tag-slovenia","tag-spain","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}