FLASH NEWS
Shadow of manipulation of public votes against Israel in Eurovision, audit requested by Spain
2025-05-18 20:40:05 / BOTA
Israel received only 60 votes from the country juries, but meanwhile took second place in Eurovision 2025 with 357 points in total, receiving a record 297 points from the public, raising eyebrows among many countries.
This has caused tensions between RTVE (Spanish Public Broadcasting) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to continue to escalate.
According to foreign media sources close to the organization, Spain's public broadcaster has decided to request an audit from the organization responsible for Eurovision televoting.
The purpose of the audit is to verify the results of the Spanish televoting, as they claim that their audience did not support Israel's song.
RTVE received 142,688 votes in the Eurovision final on Saturday night, according to a report requested by the EBU, data received this Sunday. The initial report received from Spain was a list of the countries it gave the most votes to, but did not specify the number of votes for each.
After insisting on obtaining more accurate data, RTVE obtained a new analysis from the festival organizer, which reported only that, on the night of the grand finale, it received 7,283 phone calls, 23,840 text messages (SMS) and 111,565 online votes.
But this report only shows the data aggregated by the German company responsible for counting them, without a more precise analysis, explain sources from the public body. For this reason, on Monday the Spanish network will request an audit to clarify what exactly happened. The Spanish jury gave 0 points to the Israeli song “New Day Will Rise”.
RTVE says that other countries will also request similar checks, the same sources explained to El País. This is because of the many countries whose jury gave Israel zero points, their televoting resulted in it being the country with the maximum points, namely 12.
Spanish public television began broadcasting the Eurovision 2025 final by broadcasting a message about Gaza, despite threats from the EBU.
“When it comes to human rights, silence is not an option,” was the message that appeared in English and Spanish on RTVE, Spain’s public television. The message was projected in white letters, on a black background, at the beginning of the broadcast of the Eurovision 2025 final.
RTVE commentators informed the audience that the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, has sent a letter warning Spanish broadcaster RTVE of “possible criminal sanctions” if it repeats references to the war in Gaza. The case was the presenters’ comments during the broadcast of the second Eurovision semi-final on Thursday.
The Spanish presenters called for a discussion on Israel's participation in the event and recalled the death toll in the Gaza Strip, which according to United Nations figures exceeds 53,000 and includes more than 15,000 children.
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