Record number of Brits tune in to Eurovision

The popularity of singer Sam Ryder’s viral hit ‘Space Man’ saw the UK overtake Germany to be the largest audience for 2022’s Eurovision Song Contest. 

A total of 161 million viewers tuned in to watch the 66th Eurovision Song Contest  from Turin, Italy last weekend.

The total viewership – recorded over the 3 live shows in 34 measured markets – was up 7 million year-over-year. The viewing share for the Grand Final on Saturday 14 May was up three percentage points on 2021 at 43.3%.

The largest demographic was 15-24 year-olds, where the viewing share of the Grand Final was up three percentage points from 2021 at 56.2%.

The UK, which jumped from last place in 2021 to finishing second, recorded the largest audience of all markets with 8.9 million viewers watching the Grand Final on BBC One and on the BBC iPlayer. This is the first time in 11 years that the UK saw higher ratings than Germany, which has historically been the largest market.

Spain, which finished second, saw 6.8 million viewers watching, up 86% year-over-year and its highest audience since 2008.

Host nation Italy delivered its biggest audience on record, with viewership up 53% for an average of 6.6 million viewers. It accounted for 41.9% of TV viewing in the market. 

A third of the 34 markets saw over 50% of TV audiences watching Eurovision, with an astonishing 96.4% of Icelandic TV viewers watching the event. Other Scandinavian markets also performed well, with Norway at 89.1%, Sweden at 81.4% and Finland at 72.1%. 

Other markets where more than 50% of TV viewers watched the Grand Final included: Armenia, Flemish-speaking Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Online video platforms also performed well. On TikTok, 3.3 million unique viewers watched the Grand Final live, with 5.1 million live streams in total. The platform saw a total of 189 million video views on the official Eurovision account during the two weeks leading up to the Grand Final.

Meanwhile on YouTube, viewing of the Grand Final rose nearly 50% to 7.6 million unique viewers. The largest portion of these viewers came from Ukraine, from which 2.2 million people watched their country’s triumph.

The ESC’s executive supervisor Martin Österdah, said: “’We couldn’t be happier to see the success of the Eurovision Song Contest across all our Members’ channels and on our digital platforms this year.”