161m watched Eurovision final from Turin

The organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), announced in Geneva on Wednesday that a total of at least 161 million people watched the contest's 2022 final on their television screens in mid-May, reported dpa.

The EBU based this on figures from 34 TV markets. The 161 million viewers are less than the measured 183 million for Eurovision in Rotterdam last year.

Russia - with a traditionally large audience - was excluded from participating in Eurovision this year because of its invasion of Ukraine.

No ratings were measured in Ukraine, the winning country. There are also no figures from Albania, Azerbaijan, Israel, Croatia, Malta, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and San Marino.

As always, the ratings from Iceland were record-breaking: 96.4% of all television viewers watched the Eurovision final evening. In Norway it was 89.1%, in Sweden 81.4% and in Finland 72.1%.

In Germany, the four-hour show from Italy was watched by some 36% of television viewers.

In Italy, an average of 6.6 million tuned in, in Spain 6.8 million and in Britain 8.9 million, which means that the British this time replaced Germany with the highest absolute number of viewers.

Britain landed in second place with its song this time. The winner on the night of May 15 was Ukraine with the Kalush Orchestra and the song "Stefania."

The country won the 66th Eurovision with a record number of points in the audience voting.