Eurovision voting prices differ between countries: who pays the most and how does Lithuania compare? | Business

Prices are different in all countries

This year, voters from Lithuania pay 90 cents for a call or SMS message. Compared to other countries, we do not pay the most.

The most expensive Eurovision votes go to the Spanish, who pay 1.45 euros. They pay a little less for a message – 1.09 euros, according to the Eurovision.tv website.

Estonians also pay not much cheaper. For them, a call or a message costs 1.4 euros.

Eurovisa votes cost 1.23 euros for Switzerland, 1.22 euros for Icelanders, 1.19 euros for Albania, and 1.01 euros for Cyprus.

However, we are not among the countries where votes are the cheapest.

For example, Danes pay just 13 cents for a message, while Germans pay 14 cents for a call and 20 cents for a text message.

For residents of the United Kingdom, a call or text costs 17 cents.

During the year, prices in Lithuania increased

This year, Lithuanians pay the same for a call and a text – 90 cents. However, last year the amount was slightly lower and you had to pay 60 cents for a call and 58 cents for a text message.

In Latvia, the price also increased. Last year, they got 43 Eurovision votes, and this year they got 67 cents, so they grew by 24 cents.

Prices also rose a little in Greece. The price of a call increased by 3 cents, and the price of text messages – by 6 cents.

In most other countries, the amounts remained unchanged. The attention falls on Estonia, because when the votes were 30 cents more expensive in Lithuania, they were the same price in Estonia. Last year, Estonians paid 1.7 euros for a call or text, this year the price is already 1.4 euros.

According to Eurovision.tv, the voting is administered by the EBU’s voting partner Once and overseen by the independent monitor E&Y.

Eurovision song contest team 15 minutes indicated that the cost of voting in each participating country is determined by different laws and regulations governing interactive services in the countries, as well as telecommunications infrastructure.

However, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) recommends and states in the official rules of the Eurovision Song Contest that the cost of televoting should be similar to the national rate of similar shows produced by participating broadcasters.

This 15 minutes Thomas Niedermeyer, managing director of Once, emphasized: “The voting price is determined by the broadcaster participating in the competition and should correspond to the price of other programs in the competition in the respective country or of the respective broadcaster. We have no influence on the price of the vote.”

Thus, the national broadcaster LRT, which broadcasts Eurovision, sets the voting prices in Lithuania.

So why did voting become more expensive in Lithuania this year?

LRT explains that voting was already more expensive during the national selection, and traditionally the same price is applied later when voting during the big “Eurovision”.

“This year, LRT communicated a lot with the partners who are responsible for coordinating the voting of the entire Eurovision Song Contest, both in terms of finding new ways to vote, for example using an app, and evaluating existing voting systems and tools. We have received a recommendation to review the current voting rates in our country, as the cost of voting services has increased over the years. Therefore, during the national selection, the price was updated to EUR 0.90 per call or SMS message.

The amount collected for voting, after deducting service fees, is allocated by LRT to the performer every year, thus contributing to the improvement of the performance.

Traditionally, the same price also applies when voting during the big “Eurovision”, – 15 minutes commented LRT public relations representative Miglė Savickaitė.

LRT also added that the voting price had not changed for 6 years until then.