KAN, the Israeli national broadcaster, have received a formal warning, ahead of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, in Vienna.

Earlier today, it was revealed that the EBU, the European Broadcasting Union, have sent a formal warning to KAN over a disproportionate advertising campaign, where members of the public can use all of their ten votes on one artist. This campaign is believed to have been produced in Azerbaijani, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish & Ukrainian – all the languages that would be heard during the first Semi Final, which Israel are participating in.

Martin Green, Director of the Eurovision Song Contest, had the following to say:

“On Friday 8th May it was brought to our attention that videos with an on-screen instruction to ‘vote 10 times for Israel’ had been published and released by the artist representing KAN.

Within 20 minutes we had contacted the KAN delegation to ask them to immediately stop any distribution of the videos and remove them from any platforms where they had been published. They immediately acted to do this.

The Voting Instructions of the Eurovision Song Contest that cover promotion are predominantly directed at discouraging large scale funded third-party campaigns, and we are satisfied that this video did not form part of such a campaign.

However, employing a direct call to action to vote 10 times for one artist or song is also not in line with our rules nor the spirit of the competition.

The scale of our vote means that such activity cannot affect the overall result and 50 % of all votes this year are supplied through professional juries.

Nevertheless, we have issued a formal warning letter to KAN and will continue to monitor any promotional activities carefully and take appropriate action where needed.”

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The Eurovision Community, which Eurovision Ireland are a part of, celebrates diversity through music. Please keep your comments respectful. We will not tolerate racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, body-shaming or any other derogatory or hostile language.

Author: Richard Taylor

Source: EBU & Eurovoix