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No Surprises: UKTV Will Not Broadcast Eurovision 2018

Sit down for this news! Or don’t, because we all totally knew it was coming.

UKTV, the most recent broadcaster of the Eurovision Song Contest in New Zealand, has confirmed that they will not carry the Contest, this year. The channel’s decision follows its move last year to stop broadcasting the Contest after slowly cutting back on the scale of its broadcasts, in favour of airing “premium” drama content. In 2014 and 2015, UKTV aired both semi-finals and the grand final with evening encores. The channel elected to curb its coverage in 2016 to just the grand final and encore screening before finally dropping the Contest entirely in 2017.

Despite TVNZ indicating its interest in participating in the Eurovision Asia Song Contest announced last year, it does not appear, based on advertiser ratecard schedules, that the network will carry the European Contest, this year.

Though, despair should not set in the hearts of Kiwi Eurofans – a live stream via the official YouTube channel, without commentary, will be available for all live shows in Lisbon. Plus, we’re hard at work making your down-under Eurovision experience as enjoyable as possible…stay tuned for more soon!

UKTV is a subscription channel operated by BBC Worldwide on SKY channel 7.

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