Israel’s national broadcaster has received a formal warning from Eurovision organisers after it encouraged viewers to “vote 10 times”.
The Israeli public broadcaster, known as Kan, was found to have broken the rules of the song contest on Friday (8 May) when it shared videos on social media encouraging fans to support its 2026 entry, Noam Bettan.
In the clips, Bettan, who is competing this year with the song “Michelle”, told his fans to use all 10 of their allocated votes to support him in the first semi-final on Tuesday 12 May.
The message from Bettan, 29, was apparently recorded in several languages, including French, German, English, Greek and Italian.
Kan’s endorsement of the videos was found to have breached new rules designed to limit third-party campaigns.
In a statement issued on Saturday (9 May), Eurovision director Martin Green said: “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.”
Organisers accepted that the call to viewers was not part of a “large-scale funded third-party” campaign but was still “not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition”.
Green said Eurovision would continue to monitor any promotional activity and “take appropriate steps as necessary”.
Kan said in response that the campaign was not financed by any specific group.
The change to Eurovision rules was implemented in response to controversy surrounding Israel’s result at last year’s contest, which was held in Switzerland.
Fifty per cent of all votes are now supplied through professional juries, while the number of individual votes fans can cast has been cut from 20 to 10.
Viewers can vote for the same act 10 times, but they are not able to vote for the country they are calling from.
Five countries withdrew from this year’s contest – Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, the Netherlands and Iceland – after it was confirmed that Israel would be allowed to compete again.
Explaining Spain’s reasons for boycotting the 2026 ceremony, José Pablo López, chair of the Spanish radio and television corporation, said: “As joint organisers of the Eurovision song contest, we share a collective responsibility. While Israel has regularly participated in the competition, the current events and the genocide currently taking place make it impossible for us to look the other way.
“It is not accurate to claim that Eurovision is merely an apolitical music festival. We are all aware that the contest carries significant political implications. The Israeli government is equally aware of this fact and leverages the event on the international stage.”
Eurovision 2026 kicks off this week in Vienna with the first semi-final on Tuesday 12 May, and the second semi-final on Thursday 14 May. The grand final will be held on Saturday.
