The EBU has warned the Israeli broadcaster responsible for their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest – KAN over targeted advertisements their representative Noam Bettan has published onto various social media platforms.
🇮🇱 The Norway TV2 exclusive
Speaking to Norwegian broadcaster and EBU member TV2. The head of the Eurovision Song Contest – Martin Green responded to complaints of targeted social media adverts to vote for Noam Bettan and his entry “Michelle”.
“We were made aware that videos instructing people to vote ten times for Israel had been published and released by the artist representing KAN. Within 20 minutes, we had contacted the Israeli delegation and asked them to immediately stop all distribution of the videos and remove them from all platforms where they had been published.”
Martin Green – Eurovision CEO
The new voting instructions for Eurovision, which concern marketing and promotion, are mainly introduced to avoid large-scale funded third-party campaigns. We at ESCXTRA reported on this last year. This came after an extensive social media campaign run by their 2025 representative Yuval Rafael that explicitly told people to vote 20 times for her song “New Day Will Rise” that eventually came 2nd in Basel, topping the televote. Martin gave further clarification to this.
“A direct call to use the ten votes you have available on one artist or song is also not in line with our rules or the spirit of the competition.”
Martin Green – Eurovision CEO
Furthermore Martin has stated that the EBU has been swift in warning the broadcaster about it’s responsibilities in conducting fair promotion.
“We have sent a formal warning to KAN and will continue to monitor their promotional activities closely and take action if necessary.”
Martin Green – Eurovision CEO
🇮🇱 KAN responds.
After reaching out to the Israeli broadcaster this is what KAN said to TV2. KAN maintains that they always follow the EBU rules and regulations.
“The incident in question comes from the artist’s own initiative from his own team, without any form of illegal financing and is similar to similar advertising by other artists in the competition.
Following the EBU’s desire to avoid the call to vote ten times, the artist has stopped using the videos, concludes the channel’s spokesperson”
The claim that this is from the artists own initiative however doesn’t ring true when you can see the similarities to Noam’s advert compared to Yuval’s last year.
🇪🇺 Message to HODs
Tobbe Ek, Swedish reporter for news and entertainment outlet who have extensive history in reporting for Eurovision and Sweden’s pre selection show Melodifestivalen – Aftonbladet published a communiqué that the EBU have sent to all HODs of the 34 other delegations competing in Eurovision 2026 and it reads the following.
Dear HODs,
Yesterday were made away of an artist making an online call to action to vote for their song ten times. While the action was limited and not part of a third party funded campaign we asked for it to be immediately taken down.
It’s a timely reminder that while artists appealing for people to vote for them is accepted, appeals for multiple votes are not. Please take this opportunity to review your plans and speak with
your teams if necessary.Kind regards,
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