Austria’s triumph in the Eurovision song contest has sparked a wave of joy across the country, but also fretting about how to pay for hosting the event next year.
The cash-strapped public broadcaster ORF, which would bear the bulk of the organising costs along with the still-to-be-named host city, admitted that Vienna-born JJ’s win was a mixed blessing at a time of belt-tightening.
The surprise victory of JJ, whose given name is Johannes Pietsch, leaves ORF on the hook to put on the 2026 contest, which marks the 70th anniversary of the televised music competition.
Stefanie Groiss-Horowitz, the broadcaster’s programme director, accepted the official invitation sealed in a large envelope after JJ beat the favourites from Sweden, and joked: “The suitcase with the money is coming as well?”
Even JJ, aware of the money woes, delivered an immediate mock apology: “No way – what have I done? Sorry to ORF, it’s going to be expensive.”
Groiss-Horowitz later told Austrian media she was “incredibly happy” for the singer-songwriter and for ORF, “because it is of course a giant project”.
Still, she said, “it won’t be easy. We’ll have to see how we can scrape everything we have together so we can make a success of it.”
The estimated cost to ORF of Austria hosting could exceed €30m (£25m). That compares with just under €700,000 for merely broadcasting the event. The 2026 contest comes amid a €325m cost-cutting drive, and a year in which the broadcaster will face big bills covering the men’s football World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the US, as well as the Winter Olympics in Italy.
JJ’s success in Basel, Switzerland, with his searing operatic ballad Wasted Love, marked the third time Austria has won the Eurovision song contest, following in the footsteps of Udo Jürgens in 1966 and Conchita Wurst in 2014.
“What a success. What a voice. What a show”, said an euphoric Austrian president, Alexander Van der Bellen, in a short video congratulating JJ. “All of Austria is thrilled.”
Seemingly less pleased was the finance minister, Markus Marterbauer, who tutted about the price tag. The Austrian government is facing a third year of recession while it implements budgetary cuts to bring its ballooning deficit in line with EU rules.
In a laconic Instagram post, Marterbauer shared a satirical website’s headline that said he had voted for Sweden 3,000 times to duck the expense of hosting the next contest.
His caption: “It wasn’t enough …”
Even before JJ’s triumph, the news magazine Profil ran an article headlined: “Could Austria afford another ESC?”, noting that the potential host city Vienna was €11.9bn in debt.
The Eurovision song contest says it is mainly funded by participating broadcasters’ fees, contributions by the host broadcaster and host city, and turnover from sponsorship deals, ticket sales and public voting for songs.
Switzerland’s public broadcaster SRF put the total cost of hosting the 2025 contest at 60m Swiss francs (£55m). Of that, 20m francs was borne by SRF, 35m by Basel and 5m by the organisers, the European Broadcasting Union.
However, the hundreds of journalists and tens of thousands of fans also bring in significant revenues, along with a sizeable publicity boost for the host city that can have lasting effects, said Vienna city council’s finance chief, Christoph Maschek,.
Vienna “cut a strong figure internationally” when it hosted after Conchita Wurst’s 2014 victory with the power ballad Rise Like a Phoenix, Maschek said. The city would need to examine the “financial context and the security aspects”, he added.
The federal government’s tourism chief, Elisabeth Zehetner, said the 2015 event had brought €30m in revenues to Vienna, 100,000 visitors and “advertising value in the hundreds of millions of euros range”. “Those orders of magnitude would be possible again in 2026,” she said.
Several of Austria’s smaller cities including Graz and Innsbruck, and even the town of Oberwart have also expressed interest in staging next year’s edition.
But Salzburg and Klagenfurt have already bowed out, citing insufficient infrastructure and cost concerns. ORF will make the final decision among possible venues and has promised a “transparent process”.
