Mediawatch has revealed last week than the organisers are seeking for extra funding to match Copenhagen B&W Hallen bid to host the 59^th Eurovision Song Contest.

They revealed that DR (Danish public broadcaster) have applied to the Ministry of Culture of Denmark for extra funding which would be taken from the surplus of licence fees collection, evaluated at the moment at 53 million kroner. DR’s director general, Maria Rørbye Rønn mentioned that the contest cost 70 million Kroner in 2001 but that the cost will be higher in 2014 because semi-finals have since been introduced.

(Please note that Azerbaijan spent another 100 million euros in building the Crystal Hall arena)

Money has clearly become an worrying issue for the Eurovision Song Contest since recession started years ago. Indeed many countries have no other alternatives than forfeit for Europe’s favourite TV show as the public sector has seriously been damaged by the financial crisis. Last week, Croatia’s announcement that they would not be in Denmark in 2014 for financial reasons, came as a shock for many. Last June, Ireland’s newspaper, The Irish Mirror, revealed the cost of Ireland’s participation of 207 754€ to finish last while the RTE (Irish national broadcaster) had a deficit of 60 million euros. A spokeswoman for RTE replied that The Eurovision Song Contest represents excellent value for money for RTE and for Irish television licence fee payers.

Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, has published the cost for TVE of the Spanish participation in the 5 last editions of the contest. Although, the contest is worth broadcasting for viewing figures and is cheaper than any other entertainment show that TVE would have to create for a Saturday evening, many see the cost as a big sum of money that the national broadcaster should invest somewhere else.

So far, 2 countries have withdrawn from the Eurovision Song Contest for financial reason:  Andorra and Croatia.