Eurovision Eurovision 2020

Financing the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Since it became officially known that the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 would be in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) a whole new discussion came about, because who is going to finance the Contest, and should the Dutch government get involved when it comes down to the budget of the Contest? Now, some odd months after the announcement of the Dutch host city, the discussion about the finances is still in full swing.

Funding from the Dutch government

The Dutch National Broadcaster (NPO) is looking to get funding from the Dutch government because they firmly believe that the Contest benefits the Netherlands as a whole on several levels, e.g. global media attention, and of course tourism. To sponsor the Contest they are asking for a governmental contribution of 12.4 million euros. This amount is based on a revised version of the budget for the upcoming Song Contest of 2020.

A total amount of 26.5 million euro

The estimated total amount of hosting the Contest is 26.5 million euro. The EBU contributes 9.6 million euro, together with funding coming out of ticket sales and sponsors. The NPO will contribute 2.5 million euro, and the AVROTROS will be responsible for 2 million euro. So, ultimately there will be a finance gap of 12.4 million euro that still needs to get covered, subsequently, there is the question: “By who?”

The Dutch department of media

The remaining amount is requested from the media department of the Dutch government, and the Minister of this department is thoroughly looking into it. The amount of 12.4 million is less than the amount of 15 to 20 million that was asked for when it became known that the Song Contest would be in Rotterdam in 2020. The problem is that the asked amount will come on top of the total amount that has been budgeted by the Dutch governmental department of media for the upcoming year, and when this budget came about they did not take into account that Duncan Laurence would win the 2019 edition of the Contest.

The latest on the matter

The latest on the matter is that one governmental party, going by the name D66, says that the Dutch government must contribute financially to the Eurovision Song Contest 2020, but not only out of the budget of the media department, but also out of the national budget for tourism. The reason for this would be that D66 does not want high-level research journalism to suffer from a cut out of the Dutch governmental media budget of 2020. The Netherlands also benefits from hosting the biggest music competition in the world through its national tourism, so for D66 it only seems fair that part of the remaining budget comes out of this department. The Prime Minister of the Netherlands already said in May of this year that he does not want to pay for the Contest out of tax money, so this story is to be continued…

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