Many people watched Congratulations, the show celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday. Most of the TV figures show a relatively high interest in the event.

A total share of 76% or 1,426,000 Danes chose to spend their Saturday evening in order to honour the Eurovision Song Contest. As Denmark hosted the event, high ratings were expected.

In Israel, the show gained an average of 21% marketshare with 24% as a peak. After a 4th place for Shiri Mayom in Kyiv, the interest in the contest is still high.

The 2005 Dutch entrant Glennis Grace didn't manage to enter the final although she was among the favourites. Despite that, 1.2 million people watched Congratulations in the Netherlands, which means 18.1% of the TV viewers followed the show.

Germany screened the event only through two regional broadcasters, WDR and SWR, after a last place in 2005. At least 630,000 people were following the show, which makes 4.4 % marketshare. All in all, that is not too bad for the so-called “third channels”.

In Austria, also a non-qualifying country in 2005, 17%, which means about 800,000 people, saw the anniversary show. Nevertheless, ORF already withdrew from the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest. However, the Austrian broadcaster never officially informed the European Broadcasting Union about that.

In Sweden, two million people watched Congraulations. That means a marketshare of 58.6% and a total rating of 23%. So far in 2005, Congratulations places itself on 38th place in the most watched TV-programmes this year in Sweden. As a comparison: the most watched television programme in Sweden this year is of course the final of Melodifestivalen with 4,055,000 viewers, (86.1% share), followed on second place by the final of the Eurovision Song Contest from Kyiv that had 3,320,000 viewers this year.

In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, more than a million saw Congratulations, which equals a 47% market share.

In Greece, the host country of next year's Eurovision Song Contest, the show attracted 43.7% of the television viewers at a peek, with an average of 26%.

2,835,000 people in Spain saw the show, which brings TVE on a 20% share for Saturday night.

In Portugal, 895,000 people tuned into the show from Copenhagen, which equals a 26.4% market share. The show Portugal na Eurovisão, aired Saturday afternoon, had a 27.8% share.

444,000 Finns saw Congratulations.

TNS OBOP inform OGAE Poland that Congratulations was viewed by 3,200,000 people on TVP1 (about 10% of the viewers). The semifinal from Kyiv was watched by almost 5,000,000 people and the final, without Polish entry, by 3,100,000.

In Norway, 979,000 viewers saw the live show from Copenhagen, which is a 68,2 % share for Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

On Cyprus, 79,410 people saw the show. Taking into account Cyprus is a small country, this number represents 55.7% of the television viewers at that time!

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