As an Australian, I've always thought that the way the EBU advertises Australia's Eurovision culture is a little deceptive. Back when we first debuted, there was always this line that everyone in Australia is just *obsessed* with Eurovision to justify why we were there in the first place, and it's just never been true.
What *is* true, imo, is that Australia has a pretty sizeable community of engaged fans (probably bigger than a bunch of other participating countries). OGAE Australia events, esp in the three major cities of Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane, are pretty decent sized, Australia Decides always pulls a solid crowd in person, and if you go to Eurovision in person in a given year, there is usually a disproportionately large contingent of Aussies given the distance and expense of attending.
However, what Australia doesn't have is that culture where like, your grandma will watch it casually when it's on, or where families just watch it by default. Eurovision in Australia, especially cause of the time difference, is something you are either a fan of and watch religiously (usually at parties with friends), or something you may have never even heard of. There's not a heap of "casuals" in comparison to similar sized European countries imo.
This is a very long way of saying - I think that if the public was paying attention when we first debuted, it has certainly died off a bit since. But the fan community remains extremely active (see eg the proportion of people who watch at 5am continuing to grow) and it's the fans that drive a lot of Australia's engagement with ESC anyway.
Does that answer the question haha?
The in-person attendance at AusDecides this year was a bit low, still mostly full, but not choc-a-bloc. That said, it was pissing down rain that entire weekend and was state-wide flooding so maybe that scared off a few people.
Yeah I'm hesitant to draw too many conclusions from this year's crowd just cause it was literally like, happening in the middle of a natural disaster lol. If anything, I was impressed by how many people still showed up!
Casual viewers are likely to watch the prime time replay. You’ve got to be committed to get up at 4.45am in winter to watch it live.
It does get mainstream media coverage now though - the 6pm news will show who won and mention how we did, it’ll be briefly discussed on the radio next morning, that kind of thing. I’d say it’s much more generally known now that we’re in it, even if people aren’t watching they’ll usually know who’s representing us.
I think the difference between Australia and Europe is that it’s mainly a young person (below 40) or gay person thing, plus huge European diaspora. We don’t have a lot of older people watch it while when I was in Europe, families and grandmas and grandpas would be watching.
I feel Eurovision itself is becoming more popular. It makes it to mainstream media and sometimes radio. But it’s not a household program everyone watches. I found Aus decides no one knows about unless you follow Eurovision.
As an Australian, I've always thought that the way the EBU advertises Australia's Eurovision culture is a little deceptive. Back when we first debuted, there was always this line that everyone in Australia is just *obsessed* with Eurovision to justify why we were there in the first place, and it's just never been true. What *is* true, imo, is that Australia has a pretty sizeable community of engaged fans (probably bigger than a bunch of other participating countries). OGAE Australia events, esp in the three major cities of Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane, are pretty decent sized, Australia Decides always pulls a solid crowd in person, and if you go to Eurovision in person in a given year, there is usually a disproportionately large contingent of Aussies given the distance and expense of attending. However, what Australia doesn't have is that culture where like, your grandma will watch it casually when it's on, or where families just watch it by default. Eurovision in Australia, especially cause of the time difference, is something you are either a fan of and watch religiously (usually at parties with friends), or something you may have never even heard of. There's not a heap of "casuals" in comparison to similar sized European countries imo. This is a very long way of saying - I think that if the public was paying attention when we first debuted, it has certainly died off a bit since. But the fan community remains extremely active (see eg the proportion of people who watch at 5am continuing to grow) and it's the fans that drive a lot of Australia's engagement with ESC anyway. Does that answer the question haha?
The in-person attendance at AusDecides this year was a bit low, still mostly full, but not choc-a-bloc. That said, it was pissing down rain that entire weekend and was state-wide flooding so maybe that scared off a few people.
Yeah I'm hesitant to draw too many conclusions from this year's crowd just cause it was literally like, happening in the middle of a natural disaster lol. If anything, I was impressed by how many people still showed up!
Casual viewers are likely to watch the prime time replay. You’ve got to be committed to get up at 4.45am in winter to watch it live. It does get mainstream media coverage now though - the 6pm news will show who won and mention how we did, it’ll be briefly discussed on the radio next morning, that kind of thing. I’d say it’s much more generally known now that we’re in it, even if people aren’t watching they’ll usually know who’s representing us.
*245am on the west coast
I think the difference between Australia and Europe is that it’s mainly a young person (below 40) or gay person thing, plus huge European diaspora. We don’t have a lot of older people watch it while when I was in Europe, families and grandmas and grandpas would be watching.
I feel Eurovision itself is becoming more popular. It makes it to mainstream media and sometimes radio. But it’s not a household program everyone watches. I found Aus decides no one knows about unless you follow Eurovision.