The Eurovision Song Contest, the longest-running annual international TV song competition, will be broadcast in the U.S. for a second consecutive year. Viacom’s Logo, which carried the Grand Finale live last year, will do it again for the upcoming 62nd edition of the contest, known for catchy pop tunes, extravagant costumes and over-the-top production values. The three-and-a-half-hour 2017 Grand Final will air live and commercial free on Saturday, May 13 at 12 PM PT.
Michelle Visage and Ross Mathews, judges on RuPaul’s Drag Race, which just migrated from its long-time Logo home to VH1, will serve as Logo’s commentators. They succeed Michelle Collins and Carson Kressley, who emceed last year. The 2017 Grand Final competition and winner’s ceremony will also be streamed live exclusively for U.S. viewers at logotv.com, Logo’s YouTube channel and the LogoTV mobile app.
“Logo is proud to return as the exclusive U.S. broadcast home for the global phenomenon that is the Eurovision Song Contest,” said Pamela Post, SVP of Programming for Logo. “This cultural gem has taken worldwide audiences by storm and we’re thankful to once again partner with EBU so our viewers can watch the Grand Final live.”
The Eurovision Song Contest, organized by the European Broadcasting Union, is the world’s largest non-sporting live TV event and the most watched live entertainment program in Europe, attracting over 200 million television viewers worldwide last year alone. The 2017 competition, themed “Celebrate Diversity,” will be held in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv after the country’s contestant, Jamala, won last year with a ballad inspired by the forceful deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet regime. The upcoming show already has made headlines with a controversy over Ukraine denying the wheelchair-bound Russian contestant Yulia Samoylova entry into the country because she had performed in Russian-controlled Crimea by entering directly from Russia, not via Ukraine. The move led to Russia pulling out of the competition.
Some of the global music stars whose careers were launched by Eurovision include ABBA, Celine Dion, Olivia Newton-John, Julio Iglesias, and Cliff Richard.
“The EBU is thrilled to be partnering with Logo for the second year running to bring the unique spectacle of the Eurovision Song Contest LIVE to US audiences once again,” said Jon Ola Sand, Executive Supervisor of Eurovision Song Contest. “We know that the Contest has a lot of dedicated fans in the United States and we’re excited that thanks to Logo even more viewers this year can discover the excitement of the world’s longest running annual TV music competition and “celebrate diversity” with audiences around the world.”
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