Yesterday, a press conference took place in the host city of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, Vienna in order to create a summary of the effects of this year’s competition.
ORF’s Director-General Alexander Wrabetz, Mayor of Vienna Michael Häupl and City Councillor Christian Oxonitsch all appeared at yesterday’s press conference, who went on to discuss the financial outcome of the event along with the viewing figures worldwide. The national and international response regarding the event and organisation was also revealed during the conference.
Contest ‘cheaper than planned’
Back in October last year, a budget of €8.89 million was approved by the Austrian government and the City of Vienna in order to pay for the adaption and use of host venue, the Wiener Stadthalle.
Speaking at yesterday’s press conference, Christian Oxonitsch revealed that the costs of this year’s Eurovision event was cheaper than planned, costing around €800,000 less than the estimated framework. Following the announcement of the costs of the events, Christian commented that the choice of the city [Vienna] ultimately proved to be correct.
Mayor of Vienna Michael Häupl went on to reveal that the Eurovision event was a great advertisement for the host city, speaking fondly of the cooperation between the host city and the Austrian national broadcaster, ORF.
Record number of viewers in Austria
With Austria becoming the host country of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest following Conchita Wurst’s victory at the previous competition, national interest rose within the country in the lead up to the 60th anniversary event.
With that, a record number of viewers were recorded from ORF during the Grand Final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with over 2 million people (59.9%) tuning in to watch the show. Including the 2 semi-finals which were broadcast live on the 19 and 21 May, this year’s contest as a whole was viewed by 5.9 million members of the Austrian public.
Earlier this year, ORF launched songcontest.orf.at, a website for news specifically regarding the Eurovision Song Contest. The launch of the website included a livestream of the 3 live shows which was also broadcast via tvthek.orf.at, with in total of 4.9 million views being accumulated over the week of the contest. The song contest website itself received a total of 25 million views since its launch back in January.
Earlier today, the EBU revealed that almost 200 million viewers tuned in to see the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest from around the 45 broadcasting countries, a 2 million rise from last year’s competition.
Austrians ‘satisfied’ with outcome
ORF commissioned a market and opinion research survey following the hosting of the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, asking for the Austrian public’s opinion on the Eurovision event in the host country as a whole.
A grand total of 94% of the Austrian public followed the reports in the lead up to the 2015 Eurovision Song Contest, with 88% of the Austrian public agreeing that the song contest was a good opportunity to present Austria to the world and another 75% expressing they were proud of their country following the event shows.
