Eurovision issues formal warning to Israeli broadcaster

Eurovision organisers have issued a formal warning to Israeli broadcaster KAN after promotional videos encouraged viewers to "vote 10 times" for Israel's entry.

In a statement, Eurovision Song Contest director Martin Green said the videos were not in line with the rules or the spirit of the competition.

Green said organisers were alerted on Friday, 8 May, that videos with an on-screen instruction to "vote 10 times for Israel" had been published and released by the artist representing KAN.

"Within 20 minutes, we had contacted the KAN delegation to ask them to immediately stop any distribution of the videos and remove them from any platforms where they had been published.

They immediately acted to do this," he said.

The European Broadcasting Union, which organises Eurovision, said the contest’s voting instructions around promotion are mainly aimed at discouraging large-scale funded third-party campaigns.

It said it was satisfied the videos did not form part of such a campaign.

Viewers are able to cast up to 10 votes in the public vote, but the EBU said a direct call encouraging people to use all 10 votes for one artist was not in line with the contest’s rules or spirit.

National professional juries account for the other half of the final result.

"The scale of our vote means that such activity cannot affect the overall result and 50% of all votes this year are supplied through professional juries," Green said.

"Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to KAN and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed."
The warning comes just days before this year’s Eurovision Song Contest gets under way in Vienna, Austria.

The 2026 contest is the 70th edition of Eurovision.

The semi-finals take place on Tuesday 12 May and Thursday 14 May, ahead of the grand final on Saturday 16 May.

Israel is being represented at this year’s competition by Noam Bettan with the song Michelle.

The controversy is the latest dispute surrounding Israel’s participation in the contest.

In December, RTÉ announced it would not participate in or broadcast Eurovision 2026 after the EBU confirmed that Israel would be allowed to compete.

Broadcasters in Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland and Slovenia are also not taking part in this year’s contest.

The EBU announced changes to Eurovision’s voting rules last November following concerns around voting and promotion during the 2025 contest.

Those changes included reducing the maximum number of public votes per payment method from 20 to 10 and encouraging viewers to spread their support across multiple entries.

Professional juries have also returned to the semi-finals this year for the first time since 2022, creating a 50/50 split between jury and audience voting in both the semi-finals and the grand final.