The Finnish national broadcaster, Yle and the Croatian public broadcaster, HRT will not send any commentators to Basel for Eurovision 2025.

Mikko Silvennoinen, the Finnish-language commentator for UMK and Eurovision, revealed in an interview on Huomenta Suomi on MTV3 that his commentary for this year’s contest will be done from the Yle Studios in Helsinki. He confirmed that rising costs and recent budget cuts at Yle prevented the possibility of the commentary being done from the arena.

According to Finnish Head of Delegation Anssi Autio, renting out the commentary booth is very expensive and the EBU has developed new possiblities where the commentary can take place somewhere else in the arena. However, the solution was not feasible and not that much cheaper.

Autio also stated that future commentary from the arena will depend on whether the EBU commits to solving the multiple questions raised by broadcasters about why these costs are so ridiculously high.

Yle’s funding was cut by €24 million which also meant that Yle had to drop Viisukupla – Eurovisionsbubblan, the Eurovision preview show which had been airing since 2021.

Autio has also heard of the situation in Croatia. HRT, the Croatian national broadcaster, confirmed that Duško Ćurlić will commentate for Croatian audiences from Zagreb instead of Basel.

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