Early next week, the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will kick off, this time hosted in Basel. It’s the third time Switzerland has welcomed the iconic event, and all signs point to another strong livestreaming performance. Eurovision has consistently drawn hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of live viewers over the years, and this edition looks poised to continue that trend.
Read also: Eurovision Song Contest 2025: streams, schedule, participants
Traditionally, Eurovision has garnered its largest audience through TV broadcasts. However, since the mid-2010s, coverage has expanded to include free streams on YouTube, marking a significant step in broadening the event's overall audience. These broadcasts on the Google-backed platform (and more recently on TikTok) have consistently attracted impressive viewership numbers.
Streams Charts has been tracking data on the event since 2018, and the viewer dynamics since then have been nothing short of remarkable: the event's peak audience has more than tripled. For example, the most recent contest in Malmo, Sweden, attracted over 1.55 million viewers on YouTube alone.
Notably, Eurovision’s audience grew steadily up until 2022, when the most-watched event in the contest’s history took place in Turin, Italy. At its peak, over 1.82 million concurrent viewers tuned in. Since then, the rapid growth has plateaued, but subsequent events have continued to attract around 1.4 to 1.5 million concurrent viewers, with a slight positive trend still visible.
An important factor suggesting that the event could still surpass the 2022 viewership record is that last year’s contest, while not the most popular, was the most consistently viewed of all previous editions. The average concurrent viewership for Eurovision streams surpassed 800,000 for the first time, signalling a sustained public interest in the entire event rather than just individual highlights.
Overall, there’s no reason to expect weaker performance from the event compared to the past two years. Since 2018, Eurovision’s audience has steadily grown, and while 2022 marked the peak, the event has been gradually approaching those same heights again. Additionally, the strong average viewership further confirms that public interest in the entire event is not only holding steady but actually growing. This suggests that Basel could very well set a new record for the Eurovision series.
Eurovision 2025 will take place from May 10 to 14. Viewers can expect live broadcasts of both semifinals and, of course, the grand final, scheduled for the following Sunday. For more details on the participants, intrigues, and other event highlights, check out our full article.