Higher viewing figures for Norway’s semi-final this year than last year – NRK Culture and entertainment

Yesterday’s Eurovision semi-final had 639,000 viewers. When Alessandra represented Norway in last year’s semi-final, 610,000 people watched.

That is an increase of 30,000 people from last year.

The viewing figures this year are at the same level as in 2022.

– The figures show that interest in ESC is also great in 2024. This is promising for the audience turnout on Saturday as well, says Kristian Tolonen, head of analysis at NRK.

Call for boycott

Several people have shared this image on social media, urging people not to watch Eurovision this year:

One in five Norwegians will boycott Eurovision because of Israel’s participation, VG wrote yesterday.

There have also been calls to turn off the screen as Israel’s contribution goes on stage.

Nevertheless, the Norwegian viewing figures went up this year.

Israel’s participation has caused strong reactions. Tens of thousands were out in Malmö’s streets yesterday to demonstrate.

Highest number of viewers while Israel and Norway played

Despite calls for a black screen during Israel’s contribution:

When Israel’s Eden Golan took to the stage, the viewership went crazy. This is shown by the Kantar TVOV survey.

Norges Gåte came on stage shortly afterwards, also to high viewing figures.

NRK.no sent out push notifications yesterday both when Israel and Norway were going on stage.

– Although the increase is not dramatic, there is a clear small jump in the graph, says Kristian Tolonen from NRK Analyse.

He says it’s an interesting outcome that they don’t always see much of.

– It is difficult to know what it comes from, so there will be hypotheses. It could be the news interest, that people turned on in case something happened. There are also probably many who are curious about how Norway’s contribution is doingsays Tolonen.

Cheering and booing during Israel’s performance

16 participants were reduced to 10 finalists during yesterday’s semi-final in Eurovision.

The reactions in the hall were divided during Israel’s performance. According to NRK’s ​​sources, there was booing in the hall when Eden Golan performed “Hurricane”.

The EBU has been accused of muting the sound of the audience during the performance.

When asked if the EBU is censoring, press contact for Eurovision and the EBU Claire Rainford replies as follows:

– As in all TV productions with an audience, SVT works to even out the sound for the TV viewers. It is only to achieve a balanced sound mix for the audience, and SVT does not censor the sound from the audience in the arena.