We recently conducted our second annual Eurovision Fan Survey. We tracked down fans through social media, email and just put the word out on the street...
All up we received 417 responses from 48 nations and the most 'typical' fan was a single man, aged 18-24, who was part of the LGBTIQ community, interested in travel, languages and pop music, believe Australia should compete, became a fan in 2014 and has never been to the contest.
But let's look a little more closely at the results.
So where were they from?
Being the site we are, we did focus on collecting more responses from Australia, and this was up compared to the 2018 survey (135 Australians). Respondents were from:
Australia – 205
Europe – 179
Rest of the World – 33
The highest responses outside of Australia were from:
United Kingdom – 70
Spain – 15
Germany – 11
France – 11
USA – 12
Netherlands – 10
Demographics
Respondents were more likely to be young (41% were under 25), male (66%), single (61%) and from the LGBTIQ+ community (62%).
Compared to 2018 we saw more males complete the survey (+5% from 2018), less young people (-10%), less single people (-7%) and more people from the LGBTIQ+ community (+4%) take part.
Collecting all responses online through social media and email will skew the data to younger audiences, and therefore more single respondents. But overall the responses were still significant to indicate these groups were more likely to be prevalent among the Eurovision fan community.
Full demographics results:
Age
Under 18 – 8%
18-24 – 33%
25-34 – 23%
35-44 – 18%
45-54 – 14%
55+ - 5%
Gender
Male – 66%
Female – 32%
Non-binary – 2%
Relationship status
Single – 61%
Married – 17%
Relationship/Defacto – 23%
Sexual Orientation
Heterosexual – 38%
Gay – 45%
Bisexual – 12%
Lesbian – 3%
Other sexuality (Asexual, Queer, Pan) – 2.6%
So we know who they are, but what are they interested in?
We asked Eurovision fans to rate their interest in certain topics from 'very interested' down to 'no interest'. In terms of ‘very interested’ these topics were highest among fans:
Travel – 51%
Languages – 39%
Pop Music – 37%
Geography – 36%
Trivia – 30%
Pop culture – 29%
Politics – 29%
Olympics – 25%
History – 25%
Reading – 24%
Many aspects of the contest correlate with the interests of fans – travel, language, pop music and of course.... politics.
Additionally, even though sport generally is quite low (football and tennis both at 13%), large scale events like the Olympics (25%) and the World Cup (19%) rated much higher.
This again correlates with the large scale competitive nation event of Eurovision.
These results also match up with the 2018 survey which had travel, pop music, trivia, Olympics and pop culture as the top five (languages was not an option in the 2018 survey).
So how and when did fans get into the contest?
We asked fans how they were introduced to the contest. They said general promotion was high but as was family and friends.
General promotion – 36%
Parents – 32%
Friends – 12%
Artist competing – 9%
Other family – 9%
Partner – 3%
Teacher – 1%
Additionally we looked at which year they considered themselves to become a fan.
This was the trend over time.
And the most popular years were:
2014 - 29
2016- 27
2012 - 25
2009- 23
2010 - 23
2015 - 22
2008 - 19
2004 - 18
2000 - 17
2006 - 17
2011 - 17
1976, 1996 and 1998 were the three highest from the 20th century.
How do fans interact with the contest?
The high participation of activities fan took part in were:
Watch Grand Final live - 95%
Listen or watch all songs before the contest - 91%
Follow Eurovision fan sites on social media - 90%
Watch the semi finals live - 87%
Follow at least some of the national finals - 87%
Rewatch old contests - 82%
Watch review and react videos - 70%
Other ways fans get involved included:
Attend Eurovision parties - 38%
Take part in fan song contests - 32%
Follow all the national finals - 32%
Members of their OGAE fan club - 25%
Had been to their own national final - 23%
Write for or run a fan site - 12%
Have been to another nation's national final - 9%
So what online channels do they use to interact and get their news about Eurovision?
We asked how often fans used the following channels either daily, weekly, monthly, only at Eurovision times or never. The percentage of fans who used these channels daily for Eurovision were:
Twitter – 50%
Facebook – 34%
YouTube – 31%
Instagram – 23%
Fan sites – 14%
Forums – 7%
Have fans been to the contest?
Never been to the contest - 73%
Been one or two times - 21%
Three to five times - 4%
Five times or more - 3%
Additionally 19% say they will definitely be going to Rotterdam next year.
Australia
Fans were overall very supportive of Australia staying in the contest. 86% were for Australia being in the contest, while only 4% were totally against.
Australia should stay indefinitely - 86%
Australia should stay but only for a limited time - 5%
Not sure if Australia should stay - 5%
No Australia should not compete - 4%
Scoring and changes
We asked fans if the scoring system should stay the same or change.
60% of fans wanted to keep the current scoring model, while 20% wanted to revert back to the pre-2016 process.
Additionally 8% wanted to go 100% televote and 1% wanted to go 100% jury.
11% of fans offered there own process, with the vast majority opting for the televoting to have more influence (eg 75% televote, 25% jury).
What one thing would they change?
In an open comment box, fans could offer one thing to change about the contest. The most common were (in order)
Juries - from the jury make up, to jury scrutiny and extra jury members, a large amount of fans want a jury revamp
Big 5 - fans want to see these nations to earn their way to the Grand Final
Rule relaxation - fans want to see acts perform with live instruments, have longer songs and more people on stage
Rule strengthening - stronger enforcement of rules on politics, date released and flags in the arena
Language - many fans want countries to sing in their own language
Other fans wanted to see many random things like more straight people, less straight people, no Australia competing, Samantha Jade, less gays and more shirtless men.
Try making that crowd happy!
Next up in our Eurovision Fan Survey series, we will look at Australian fans and how they differ from their European and international counterparts.