Swedish music stars call for Israel Eurovision ban over Gaza
Swedish music stars call for Israel Eurovision ban over Gaza
Open letter signed by more than 1,000 musicians from 2024 host country follows petition from artists in Finland and Iceland
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I'm American so I have never followed Eurovision. I always assumed it was European only. Are there many none European countries that participate? The USA doesn't right?
Israel and Australia participate.
Israel has been since 1973 because their national broadcaster is part of the European Broadcasting Union.
Australia has had a huge cult following and was initially only allowed to join for a one-off year in 2015, but because of the success they've been allowed to take part every year since.
Au has a lot of immigrants from the EU - but also our international TV station SBS is part of the EU broadcast union
The whole Mediterranean is part of the EBU, at least Lebanon and Morocco are even founding members -- the list isn't easy to read because it lists when a broadcaster joined, not when the country first joined with any broadcaster.
The Arab nations boycott the ESC though because Israel participates. So, please, if you suspend Israel do it early enough so that those states have an opportunity to do a national selection.
Au has a lot of immigrants from the EU - but also our international TV station SBS is part of the EU broadcast union
The Eurovision Song Contest is organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) an organization set up to regulate TV tech. In short they exist to make sure a TV bought in Spain also works in Sweden. As such the EBU also grants full membership to countries that are not part of Europe but have strong economic ties with the continent and therefore are part of the European Broadcasting Area. That's how we got Israel in the contest. Australia also competes because (a) they are an associate member (b) they have an long history of airing the contest even before they competed (c) they spend a large sum of money every year to make the EBU forget where exactly Australia is located.
The US doesn't participate but a couple of years ago NBC bought the rights and tried to mount an "American Song Contest". It didn't work all that well because it was hamstrung by the rigid structure of American network TV. The ESC works (in part) because it is three nights only and they tried to make an entire season of television.
Australia is in the contest. Do what you want with that info.