A good two weeks ago, the Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra won the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) in Turin with their song "Stefania", which was followed by more than 161 million people around the world.
However, not in Russia, which did not broadcast the ESC after its exclusion, which explains, among other things, the decline in viewers compared to the previous year, when 189 million people watched the ESC in Rotterdam.
Overall, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) assumes that interest in the ESC has continued to grow: Accordingly, the number of viewers increased by 4.5 percent from 2021 to 2022.
In Eastern Europe and also in Central Asia, the musicians around singer Oleh Psiuk are particularly successful with their song "Stefania".
This is shown by the streaming numbers from Spotify.
Their winning title was played almost 23 million times in total.
In general, a number of ESC songs developed into chart successes this year, often even in their own country.
That hasn't been the case for decades.
Britain's Sam Ryder, for example, reached number two in the UK with "Space Man", as did Sweden's Cornelia Jakobs with "Hold Me Closer" in Sweden, having already been number one in March.
After the final on May 14, the Spaniard Chanel advanced to first place in her home country with "SloMo", as did the Dutch S 10 (Stien den Hollander) with "De Diepte" in the Netherlands.