I feel like this gets asked often. There are several countries that aren’t in Europe but that currently participate in Eurovision: Israel, Cyprus, Armenia, and Australia.
The contest is organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which is made up of various broadcasters from countries across Europe and beyond. The BBC is a member of the EBU, as is RTE in Ireland, Rai in Italy, SVT in Sweden and so on. There are 73 member stations from more than 56 countries, and they’re entitled to send acts to Eurovision if they wish.
So as long as a nation has a broadcaster that operates inside the EBU, they’re allowed to enter.
Israel isn’t in Europe, so why is it in Eurovision in the first place?
I feel like this gets asked often. There are several countries that aren’t in Europe but that currently participate in Eurovision: Israel, Cyprus, Armenia, and Australia.
So as long as a nation has a broadcaster that operates inside the EBU, they’re allowed to enter.
Look at this map of EBU members and associate members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Broadcasting_Union#/media/File:EBU_Member_Elliptic.svg
If australia is a “member” then so is china, india, iran, brazil, chile, egypt, algeria, south africa, japan, new zealand, malaysia, brunei
So…is iran allowed to compete? How about the Brunei, a portion of the island of Borneo? "Euro"vision becomes a bit of a joke, doesnt it.
That’s a good question… Is there a large European diaspora in Israel?
Good one xD
It’s in the European Broadcasting Area. So is most of the Middle East, but in the region only Israel participates.