51% of Britons say that it’s more important for the best song to win than for it to be fun
Europe’s biggest party is upon us again, with Basel in Switzerland set to host the final of 2025’s Eurovision Song Contest this Saturday.
A quarter (24%) of the public say they are likely to tune in to this year’s competition, with 19% of Brits describing themselves as Eurovision fans.
As ever, there are likely to be strong disagreements about which countries’ song should win, with a long-running debate being whether the contest should be judged most on which is technically the best song or whether the winner should be the most fun ‘Eurovision-y’ performance.
For Britons, questions of musical merit tend to win out over the fun factor, with 51% saying they would rather the winning song was the one that was best overall, even if it wasn’t the most fun, compared to 18% who feel that being the most fun should outweigh everything else.
While most Eurovision fans (57%) agree with this assessment, they are twice as likely as the wider public (36%) to want the most fun song to win out.
Younger Britons are also more likely to have this viewpoint. While over 65s favour the winning song being the best overall by a huge margin of 59% to 11%, for 18-24 year olds, the margin is a much closer 41% to 31%.
Why do Britons think the UK scores so poorly in Eurovision?
Most British fans have long resigned themselves to the fact that the United Kingdom’s entry is more likely to get the dreaded ‘nil points’ than to be crowned champion.
This has often been laid at the door of political voting by other countries, and indeed 67% of Britons and 69% of Eurovision fans believe this is the biggest factor in the generally weak ranking of the UK.
By contrast, one in seven Britons (14%) and a quarter of Eurovision fans (25%) say the blame lies more with the UK and our song choice.
Should Israel and Russia be allowed to compete in Eurovision?
But questions about politics at Eurovision don’t just stop at certain countries habitually voting for another’s entry. One of the main controversies around the contest in recent years has been around which countries are allowed to compete. Russia has been excluded from the contest since 2022 following their invasion of Ukraine, but some have said the same should apply to Israel for their actions in Gaza.
Nearly six in ten Britons (58%), including a similar proportion of Eurovision fans (61%), believe that Israel should not be allowed to be compete in the contest, virtually unchanged from the 59% of the public who said so last year. This compares to 70% of Britons in both years believing that Russia should be excluded from the contest, though an even higher 78% of Eurovision fans believe Russia should not be allowed in the competition.
Among those who believe that Israel should be barred from Eurovision, 57% cite its actions in Gaza as a key reason why they should not be allowed to compete, up from 46% who said so last year, as well as rising to 73% among Eurovision fans who believe Israel should be excluded.
This is a less popular reason, though, than geographic considerations, with 67% of those who support a ban for Israel saying the fact it is not geographically situated in Europe should be the reason for its exclusion. Nonetheless 31% of those in favour of Israeli exclusion give their actions in Gaza as the sole reason they should be kept out the competition, rising to 49% among pro-exclusion Eurovision fans.
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Photo: Getty
