ISRAEL 🇮🇱 The total cost of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in Israel in 2019 will be €35-45 million (NIS 150-190 million). Israel will have to transfer €12 million (NIS 50 million) of this amount this August as a guarantee to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), as the host country is required to do every year. Almost the entire cost of the event will need to be borne by the public purse, with the Ministry of Finance providing funding to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC), which broadcasts as Kan. The EBU itself contributes only a few million euro. The figures derive from the official budget request that the IPBC will send to the Ministry of Finance today.
“Globes” has also learned that a delegation from the IPBC will travel to a first working meeting with EBU representatives in Geneva next week. The EBU representatives recently visited Israel. The IPBC delegation will be led by the corporation’s CEO Eldad Koblenz, who will be accompanied by, among others, IPBC’s EBU liaison person Tal Barnea.
It remains to be decided which city in Israel will host the event. Channel 20 reported yesterday that the IPBC will make presentations on four cities to the EBU (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Eilat). In fact, no such presentations are planned for the forthcoming meeting. The IPBC does intend to draw up a document with detailed criteria in accordance with EBU requirements on such matters as the venue, transport and security arrangements, and so forth, and to allow any city that meets the criteria and is interested in hosting the event to submit its candidacy. In practice, it is clear that only a small number of cities are actually capable of meeting the criteria, but in any case this matter will be settled only later, and probably within months rather than weeks.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Communications stated yesterday that its director general, Nati Cohen, had spoken to Koblenz, and that they had agreed that the IPBC would have exclusive responsibility for all matters connected to production of the Eurovision Song Contest broadcast and its content, including liaison with the EBU. “There will be no political involvement whatsoever by the government in these matters,” the ministry said.
