Eurovision's seventieth-anniversary contest opens Tuesday in Vienna inside a security and political architecture none of its previous sixty-nine editions has carried. The European Broadcasting Union has formally reprimanded KAN, Israel's public broadcaster, over a paid campaign instructing Israeli viewers to "vote 10 times" for their country's entry. [1] The FBI has confirmed a New York–based cybersecurity task force operating around the clock during contest week. The five-country boycott — Spain, Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia, all over Israel's participation — is the largest withdrawal in Eurovision's history, exceeding the 1970 five-country boycott over the previous year's four-way tie. [2] The thirty-five-country competing field is the smallest since 2003. Vicky Leandros, who won Eurovision for Luxembourg in 1972 with "Après toi" and earlier represented Luxembourg in 1967 with "L'amour est bleu," will open the first semi-final performing her 1967 number backed by a seventy-member choir. [3]

The paper's May 10 reading of the contest at T-2 named the Leandros opener and the five-country boycott. Today's piece, at T-1, adds the FBI task force, the EBU reprimand to KAN, and the rejection of the final invitation by Sertab Erener, the Turkish singer who won the contest for Turkey in 2003. The 70th-anniversary number now sits inside an actively policed week.

What the EBU told KAN

The European Broadcasting Union's reprimand to KAN, issued Friday and Saturday in two stages, concerns a paid digital campaign run by KAN's marketing division instructing Israeli viewers that "you can vote 10 times" for their country's entry under the contest's televote rules. [1] Eurovision's televote regulations cap viewer voting at twenty calls or text messages per person, with a maximum of three votes per country, including the viewer's own — meaning the "vote 10 times" instruction was, on its face, in conflict with the published voting structure. The reprimand is a formal procedural notice issued through the EBU's Reference Group. It does not, as of Monday, carry a financial penalty or a points sanction; it is a document that enters the regulatory record of the broadcaster's conduct ahead of the contest.

RTÉ's reporting on the reprimand placed it inside the longer arc of KAN's relationship with the EBU through the Gaza protest year. [1] The reprimand does not, by itself, change Israel's participation status. Israel competes in the second semi-final Thursday and is in the running for the grand final Saturday night. The Spanish, Irish, Icelandic, Dutch, and Slovenian withdrawals remain in place. The five boycotting broadcasters have, in their respective statements, named Israel's participation as the operative reason — not the KAN campaign, which broke after most of the withdrawal decisions were filed.

The FBI register

The FBI's confirmation of a New York cyber task force operating around the clock during Eurovision week is the U.S. law-enforcement layer the contest has not visibly carried before. The host broadcaster is Austria's ORF; the Bureau's involvement runs through the EBU's coordination with U.S. cyber agencies on what officials have described as an "elevated threat environment" around the anniversary edition. The task force operates from New York with liaisons into Vienna's host-security architecture. Whether the FBI will publicly name the scope of monitoring — protected systems, threat classifications, partner agencies — is the open procedural question Monday's pre-contest press cycle has not yet answered.

Vienna police have been bracing for protests and what the city's police directorate described as "disruption attempts" through the week. [2] Protest permits have been granted for several locations near the Wiener Stadthalle and along the Ringstraße. Spanish and Irish solidarity demonstrations are expected outside the venue on multiple evenings. The Times of Israel's preview noted the police directorate has staged additional units inside the protest zones, including the venue's restricted security perimeter. [2]

Sertab Erener says no

Sertab Erener, the Turkish pop singer whose "Everyway That I Can" won Eurovision for Turkey in 2003, rejected the contest's invitation to perform at the grand final. Erener's statement, issued through her management to the Turkish press over the weekend, named the Gaza war and Israel's participation as the basis for her decision. Turkey itself has not competed at Eurovision since 2012, citing what the Turkish broadcaster TRT described at the time as concerns with the voting structure. Erener's invitation was extended as a heritage-winner appearance — the seventieth-anniversary edition has invited multiple former winners to perform during the grand final's intervals.

Erener's "no" is structurally different from a competing broadcaster's withdrawal. She is a former winner declining a ceremonial invitation; the five boycotting broadcasters are EBU members whose national taxpayers fund Eurovision participation, and whose decisions carry the weight of their public-broadcasting governance. Both registers — the heritage-winner refusal and the boycotting-member withdrawal — sit inside the same anniversary year's program.

Vicky Leandros and the choir

The Leandros opener is the contest's anniversary set-piece. Leandros, born in 1949 on the island of Corfu, represented Luxembourg at Eurovision twice — losing in 1967 with "L'amour est bleu" by André Popp before winning in 1972 with "Après toi" by Klaus Munro and Yves Dessca. "L'amour est bleu" — finishing fourth in 1967 — went on to chart globally in the Paul Mauriat orchestral version that hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in February 1968. Leandros is performing the 1967 number, not the 1972 winner, with a seventy-member choir staged by the contest's anniversary creative team. [3] The choice is meaningful: the seventy-member count matches the contest's seventy editions, and the song's place in Eurovision's history — a near-miss in 1967 that became one of the most commercially successful Eurovision-adjacent records of the twentieth century — gives the anniversary opener a register that does not depend on the contest's competing field for emotional weight.

The Leandros set is the X-verifiable artifact of the week. The contest's official EurovisionFun account confirmed Friday she will open semi-1; Sunday's RTÉ and Times of Israel coverage corroborates. [3] Whether the seventy-member choir is itself a documentary reference to the seventy editions is unconfirmed in the official program; the choir's size, the song's vintage, and the anniversary year's framing all point in one direction.

The thirty-five and the field

A thirty-five-country competing field is the smallest since 2003. By comparison, the 2024 contest in Malmö had thirty-seven competing acts; 2025 in Basel had thirty-six. The withdrawal of five members reduces the field by a count larger than the typical year's organic churn; the boycott's political reason is part of the program. Among the boycotting broadcasters, RTVE (Spain), RTÉ (Ireland), RÚV (Iceland), AVROTROS (the Netherlands), and RTV SLO (Slovenia) all named Israel's participation. KAN remains entered. The grand final Saturday will run with thirty-five competing acts plus the anniversary interval programming.

Of the competing thirty-five, semi-1 Tuesday includes the favourites' bracket: Sweden, Norway, Greece, Ukraine, Croatia, and the host broadcaster Austria, which automatically qualifies for the grand final under host-country rules. The voting structure follows the standard split: jury votes plus televote across the two semis Tuesday and Thursday, then the grand final Saturday with public votes from all participating countries. The "vote 10 times" KAN campaign — the reprimand's subject — sits inside the televote rules the reprimand has now formally documented.

What the seventieth year has produced

A seventy-year-old contest that began as a multilateral public-broadcasting cooperative through the postwar EBU now operates under an FBI cyber task force, a formal reprimand to a member broadcaster over voting-instruction language, the largest withdrawal slate in the contest's history, a former winner's no, and a police directorate preparing for protests near the venue every evening of the week. The anniversary's ceremonial register — Vicky Leandros and a seventy-member choir performing a sixty-year-old song that finished fourth — is the part of the program that still operates as the contest was originally designed.

The competing field is the smallest in twenty-three years. The reprimand is on the EBU's record. The FBI is monitoring the broadcast. The Vienna police are at the entrance. Tuesday is T-1. Leandros opens. The seventieth edition begins. [1][2][3]

-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles