Eurovision 2027 to go ahead without Czechia: ČT cites money

Czech Public Television (ČT) officially confirmed on Tuesday, October 6, that it will not broadcast next year's Eurovision Song Contest. The 2027 contest, to be held in Burgas, Bulgaria, will go ahead without Czech participation — a decision made by the broadcaster's management, which had stayed silent for a week after the news first leaked.

Silence after the leak

Rumours that Czechia planned to withdraw from the world's biggest music competition had been circulating since late September, when former ČT Council member Vratislav Dostál first spoke about the plans. The broadcaster declined to comment even after repeated requests and never denied the reports. An official statement came only after a week of silence, confirming all the speculation.

The contest's organiser, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), had effectively been pushing ČT to keep its decision under wraps for as long as possible. The reason is simple: any country that has already signed up can still withdraw without penalty until mid-October, and the EBU fears a chain reaction. In recent years Eurovision has been going through an unprecedented crisis, losing one participating country after another over Israel's involvement, and with every empty slot it drifts further from its original pan-European scope.

Money was cited as the only reason

ČT's management named finances as the sole reason for pulling out. The broadcaster operates under pressure from the Babiš government, which has for years kept public media in financial and political limbo and which this year again failed to raise the TV licence fee — only thanks to the slow pace of Motorists party minister Oto Klempíř. At the same time, ČT has not disclosed the exact cost of taking part in Eurovision, either in absolute terms or as a share of the programming budget, and did not provide the figures even on direct request.

The decision looks especially odd given the words of ČT programming director Milan Fridrich, who admits the broadcaster's audience among Generation Z and young adults is falling sharply. Yet it is precisely the format that organically connected the channel with its youngest viewers that ČT is now abandoning. And the withdrawal did not follow a string of flops — quite the opposite: last year's final, featuring Czech entrant Daniel Žižka, drew a ten-year record audience — an average of 287,000 viewers and more than a 13% share of total television viewing in its time slot. Interest in Eurovision in Czechia had only just started to grow.

What Czechia loses along with the contest

Besides the entertainment value, the country is losing a tool of soft cultural diplomacy — one whose importance is well understood by, for example, Canada, which is joining Eurovision for the first time precisely in order to draw closer to Europe's cultural community.

A pause does not necessarily mean leaving for good: Czechia has skipped the contest before — from 2009 to 2015 — and then returned. Bulgaria, after a similar break, even went on to win Eurovision and will now host the next contest itself. But there is also a cautionary example: neighbouring Slovakia left the contest several years ago for economic reasons — and still has not come back.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz