There were boos in the audience in Malmö during the performance of the Israeli Eden Golan on Thursday evening, but the viewers at home did not notice this. Videos of people at the scene shouting “free Palestine” circulated on social media, but only cheering could be heard on TV. This led to the suspicion that the organization had filtered out the booing.
“The signal comes from Sweden and is transmitted unchanged to the antenna by VRT,” says Wies Descheemaeker, chairman of the ACOD trade union at VRT. Jean Philip De Tender of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) organization could not be reached for comment, but had already announced in advance that no political messages would be seen or heard during the show.
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Peter Van de Veire, Eurovision Song Contest commentator for VRT, qualifies the suspicions that the sound had been tampered with. “During the jury show on Wednesday evening (the dress rehearsal, ed.) there was indeed clearly audible shouting in the audience,” he says on the phone from Malmö. “But on Thursday evening there was a different audience. That was very well screened. There was of course a bit of booing in that show, but much less manifestly and loudly than on Wednesday evening.”
Van de Veire knows that there was extra applause during Israel’s performance. “For all acts that need it, extra applause is put on the soundtrack.”
What Van de Veire does notice is a counter-reaction. “The more there are protests against Israel, the more people will see Eden Golan as an underdog. I hear voices here that that poor girl can’t do anything about the situation and that she still has a nice song. Strangely enough, the protest against Israel gives the country more applause and more votes.”
The vote distribution of the Italian viewers that the Italian TV channel Rai accidentally announced during the broadcast of the second semi-final seems to confirm this. No fewer than 39.31 percent of Italian viewers voted for the Israeli entry in the televoting. Israel is in second place among bookmakers.
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