[hedora]

Why, oh why does Eurovision prevent itself from being viewed in the US?

You could argue "licensing", but I'm guessing you're going to be hard pressed to find a contestant band / manager that says "we're trying to keep this low-key/limit publicity for now".

[haunter]

Blame NBC, the local broadcasters decide if they want to block it or not

https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi?ytid=https%3A%2F%2...

[reaperducer]

Blame NBC, the local broadcasters decide if they want to block it or not

NBC is not the "local broadcaster" in the sense that the BBC is the local broadcaster for the United Kingdom, or ABC is the local broadcaster for Australia. Broadcasting in the U.S. doesn't work that way.

That said, NBC does air American Song Contest, which is Eurovision production, and receives very poor ratings. Because of this, I surmise that Eurovision doesn't air in the United States because none of the broadcasters will pay for the rights if it's not going to bring in enough viewers to make up for the fee.

If Eurovision really wanted its program to be seen in the U.S., there is no shortage of small networks, cable/satellite networks, LPTV networks, or OTT providers for getting its program seen. It just has to offer the show at a reasonable rate.

I don't think this is a case of the usual HN cliché of "Evil company blocks me from seeing something for no other reason than to be evil."

[haunter]

>Eurovision doesn't air in the United States because none of the broadcasters will pay for the rights if it's not going to bring in enough viewers to make up for the fee

NBC bought the rights https://eurovision.tv/story/peacock-eurovision

After that it's up to them blocking the Youtube stream or not and they did block it

>I don't think this is a case of the usual HN cliché of "Evil company blocks me from seeing something for no other reason than to be evil."

No it's the case "we bought the licence and we stream it on our streaming platform and you have to watch it here"

[reaperducer]

Thanks for the clarification. That didn't come up when I did my search. I guess that's what I get for using Google!

So, it's not "blocked" as in not ever going to be available. It's just going to be on Peacock next Sunday.

No it's the case "we bought the licence and we stream it on our streaming platform and you have to watch it here"

No different than in the UK where you have to pay a fee to watch it on BBC.

[midasuni]

It’s broadcasting on bbc one at the moment. Graham is telling us we can vote for Poland.

Is it broadcasting in NBC?

[jorams]

> ...or ABC is the local broadcaster for Australia.

Just a note here: The Eurovision local broadcaster for Australia is SBS[1]. SBS is also mostly publicly funded.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Broadcasting_Service

[blahedo]

Eurovision has been watchable on free livestream in the US for close to a decade. Originally directly from eurovision.tv, later via LOGO. I agree that NBC's rights purchase is probably due to launching ASC, though.

[detaro]

NBC is the local broadcaster for Eurovision, given that they licensed it.

[United857]

https://www.svtplay.se/eurovision-song-contest-2022

Swedish but seems to work in the US if you don't mind Swedish commentary

[RajT88]

There's ways around it.

As of this writing, youtube downloader sites are mostly not hosted in the US due to this same issue - so if you can get one to work, it works around the GeoIP block. (Note: I got one to work, but it quit 4gb into the 6gb download)

The better way - which I am happy to be patient for - is to wait until someone rips it. I like to a few weeks later see if I can find the UK broadcast (usually a torrent), since a few years Graham Norton was the MC and was lightly poking fun of everyone the whole time.

[kelnos]

Last year and this year we watched it on the Peacock app (casted to TV), which I hadn't even known existed before looking for a way to watch Eurovision. Last year it was free to watch, but this year I had to sign up for a subscription ($5) to watch it... which I immediately canceled after it was over.