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News May 16, 2016

Australia leads global Eurovision tweets

The presence of Australia in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest saw Australians not only tune into the broadcast but head for Twitter.

Twitter reports that the most popular country hashtag was #Aus (Australia), followed by #Pol (Poland), #Rus (Russia), #Fra (France) and #Gbr (Great Britain).

More than 7 million global tweets were sent over the course of the Eurovision song contest Grand Final on Saturday evening European time (Sunday morning Australia).

The biggest moment of the night was when Ukraine was declared the winner over Australia: that generated a record 72,915 tweets per minute. The previous record was last year was 48,461 tweets per minute when Georgia won. Justin Timberlake’s appearance attracted 32,000 Tweets per minute.

Many tweets made cynical cracks about Australia’s involvement in the Europe-wide contest. One tweeter solved the problem: it showed Australia moved next to England on a redrawn map.

This year SBS ramped up its platforms for more interactive viewing than before, allowing tweets and Facebook posts to be included during the broadcast, and tracking all social media activity. Enhanced online and mobile voting was introduced to uncover the “unofficial Australian favourite”. SBS Media also signed on two broadcast sponsors for 2016: car maker Renault which gave away a Renault Clio, and HOSTPLUS super funds.

In Australia SBS Eurovision was trending across Twitter on the Friday and Saturday semi-finals and Sunday’s Grand Final. During the broadcast the hashtag #SBSEurovision was tweeted more than 121,500 times, peaking at 260 tweet per minute on the Friday broadcast.

In 2015 there were 215,000 Eurovision-related tweets from Australians in total. 6 million Eurovision tweets were sent globally.

As reported in TMN yesterday, overnight metro-only figures from OzTam on the Grand Final showed 934,000 Australians tuned in. An average of 407,000 rose early to watch the early morning telecast from Stockholm, peaking at 8.30 am with 527,000. The evening replay from 7.30 pm drew 407,000 and was 16th highest rating show of the night.

Updated figures that combined metro and regional views put the figure at 3.7 million over the three nights. The live finale proved a 13% increase for SBS. It gave SBS a 10.5% audience share on Sunday night, up from its usual 5%. There was also an 82% lift online from 2015.

Faced with these figures and a “proving the haters wrong”, SBS Managing Director Michael Ebeid says the network has already begun talks with the European Broadcasting Union for Australia to be officially represented in Eurovision for a third time in the Ukraine 2017.

With the European meet over, Ebeid told the Sydney Morning Herald that SBS will now intensify negotiations with Asian-wide broadcasters and sponsors for Eurovision Asia. Countries like India, China and South Korea have already expressed strong interest. The music industry would be keen to be involved, as the winner of Eurovision Asia would presumably get a slot in the European meet, and showcase their acts to a new and huge audience.

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