The Eurovision Song Contest continues to pull in big audiences. The 2024 edition, held in Malmö, Sweden, saw substantial viewing figures across its three live shows: the first semifinal on 7 May, the second semifinal on 9 May, and the Grand Final on 11 May. Switzerland’s Nemo won with “The Code”, while Croatia finished second.
Read also: Eurovision 2023: The Viewing Figures
First Semifinal
Already, the Tuesday semifinal feels as if it took place in a different time – some of the major media bombshells had yet to hit. As such, the first semifinal of Eurovision 2024 set a high bar for viewer engagement.
The detailed semifinal figures below come from broadcaster reports and contemporary audience roundups rather than one consolidated EBU table, so the definitions and channel coverage are not always identical. Spain marked its best ratings since 2009 with approximately 722,000 viewers, a 5.7% share on TVE2. The United Kingdom reported nearly 1.9 million viewers on BBC One, described at the time as its best semifinal audience outside a hosting year. Finland recorded a strong 66% viewing share.
Other reported figures included:
- Austria: 381,000 viewers, 18.5% share
- Belgium: VRT: 635k viewers, RTBF: 136k viewers
- Germany: 680,000 viewers, 3.6% share
- Iceland: 92,800 viewers, 53.3% share
- Italy: 1,912,000 viewers, approximately 9.45% share
- Switzerland: 162,000 viewers, 17% share
These numbers reflect robust interest in the contest’s competitive stages, setting the stage for even higher anticipation for the subsequent shows.
Second Semifinal
The second semifinal saw Italian Rai 2 capturing an average of 2,817,000 viewers, making it the channel’s most-watched primetime show of the year to date. The United Kingdom maintained strong viewership with 1.8 million viewers on BBC One – after years of hiding Eurovision away on minority channels.
Germany saw a slight dip compared with the first semifinal, with 660,000 viewers, yet interest remained higher than in 2023. Spain also showed an increase from the first semifinal, with 1,285,000 viewers tuning in on the night Spanish fans could watch their song and vote. It was reported as the country’s second-most-watched Eurovision semifinal.
Grand Final
The Grand Final, as expected, garnered the highest viewership, with standout numbers from major broadcasting countries. The figures below are not all measured on precisely the same basis, which is worth bearing in mind before turning them into a Eurovision league table.
- Germany: 8.1 million viewers across Das Erste and ONE. Some reports instead quoted approximately 7.4 million for Das Erste alone.
- United Kingdom: 7.7 million viewers on BBC One, the largest single national audience reported in the EBU material.
- Italy: 5.34 million viewers on Rai 1, a 36% share. The audience peaked at 6.663 million during Angelina Mango’s performance, while the winner announcement reached a 59.4% share.
- France: 5.4 million viewers, an increase of 1.9 million compared with the previous year.
- Sweden: approximately 2.3 million viewers and an 87.3% share, its highest Eurovision share since 2000.
Croatia recorded 1.1 million viewers and a 73.2% share, its highest Eurovision audience and share on record since 2006. Greece had approximately 2.8 million viewers, its best result since 2011. Ireland’s official EBU figure was 650,000, its biggest audience since 2013 – a little different from the 666,000 figure reported in some contemporary coverage.
Switzerland’s verified figure was 723,000 viewers averaged across its three linguistic regions and the three live shows, rather than a Grand Final-only audience. Latvia recorded 252,000 viewers and a 61.8% share, its strongest audience in nearly a decade and highest share since 2007.
The EBU reported that 18 of the 37 markets achieved more than a 50% viewing share. The leading reported shares were Iceland at 96%, Sweden at 87.3%, Norway at 85.5%, Finland at 83.1%, Croatia at 73.2% and Lithuania at 70.2%. Eurovision remains capable of making a television ratings chart look like a list of national obsessions – which, frankly, is probably what it is.
Global Impact and Online Engagement
The Eurovision Song Contest 2024 reached 163 million people across the three live shows in 37 public-service media markets, an increase of 1 million compared with 2023 and 2 million compared with 2022. This was cumulative reach across the three shows, not the audience for the Grand Final alone.
The Grand Final viewing share averaged 46.7%, the highest since 2006. Among 15–24-year-olds, the share was 58.6%, described by the EBU as a record.
Online, the contest saw huge engagement. The official Eurovision YouTube channel attracted 7.3 million unique viewers to the live shows during event week, either live or on replay. The Grand Final stream peaked at 1.6 million concurrent viewers, 17.8% above Liverpool 2023. Across all content during the live-show week, the channel reached 42 million unique viewers in 231 countries and territories – a broader figure that should not be confused with the live-show total.
TikTok reached 486 million unique accounts during the event weeks, while videos using #Eurovision2024 were viewed 6.5 billion times. The official Eurovision TikTok account itself recorded 538 million video views. The official Eurovision Instagram presence reached 69 million unique accounts and generated 479 million video views, while the Eurovision Facebook page was viewed by 23 million people. The Eurovision Song Contest app was used by 2.5 million people.
And so …
For all the mishaps and missteps taken by organisers this time around, sustained interest in Eurovision underscores its relevance and appeal as a significant event in the international music and cultural calendar.
The numbers also show why a single headline figure rarely tells the whole story. There is cumulative reach across three shows, national audiences, market shares, secondary channels, streaming and an enormous social-media footprint. Eurovision continues to draw viewers across varying demographics and platforms. As it evolves, its ability to adapt and resonate with a global audience ensures that it remains a highlight of the broadcasting year.
