Yle, the Finnish national broadcaster, has revealed that it 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 this morning that he will be commentating on Eurovision 2025 from Yle Studios in Pasila in Helsinki. He cited rising costs and budget cuts at Yle for the reason behind this decision. Mikko will travel to Basel for the opening ceremony and return to Finland to do commentary for the live shows.
Anssi Autio, Head of Delegation for Finland, explained the issue further:
“You can’t afford everything. If prices rise and we don’t have as much money, the decision is quite simple.
Everyone probably understands that commentary requires technical equipment and a commentary booth. It will be quite a large sum of money.”
Silvennoinen also spoke on Huomenta Suomi that he is nervous about how he will find out about the audience’s reactions to different performances. Autio assures that they have people on site in Basel through whom the information will surely be passed on to the commentators in Helsinki.
“Reports have been done from Pasila before. We’ll see how this year goes. Of course, we believe that the reactions will be conveyed from there in other ways than just being there.”
Autio has also heard of similar situations in other countries. HRT, the Croatian national broadcaster, confirmed that Duško Ćurlić will commentate for Croatian audiences from Zagreb instead of Basel. He also said that the EBU offered other solutions so that commentators could be in Basel:
“New possibilities have been developed there, where the commentary booth would not be in the hall but somewhere else in the arena. But even that didn’t sound like a very good solution, let alone a much cheaper one.
When asked if all Finnish Eurovision commentators would commentate from Helsinki in the future, Autio replied:
“It depends on whether the EBU takes seriously these questions from us and other countries about how this cost can be so enormously high right now. However, we have to make do with our own budget for the moment.”
Yle’s funding was cut by EUR 24 million following the decision of a Finnish parliamentary working group. These cuts also meant that Yle has had to drop Viisukupla – Eurovisionsbubblan, a bilingual Finnish and Swedish Eurovision preview show which had been airing since 2021.
Yle will provide commentary for Eurovision 2025 in six languages. The Finnish commentators for Eurovision 2025 are as follows:
- Mikko Silvennoinen (Finnish)
- Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos (Swedish)
- Levan Tvaltvadze (Russian)
- Heli Huovinen (Inari Sámi)
- Aslak Paltto (Northern Sámi)
- Galyna Sergeyeva (Ukrainian)
Erika Vikman won UMK 2025 and will represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest 2025 with, “Ich komme”. She will close the second semi-final on May 15. You can watch our interview with the singer from Eurovision in Concert 2025 below:
Image source: Cision | Source: Iltalehti
Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest
Finland first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961. They debuted alongside Spain and Yugoslavia. Finland has finished last in the contest on 10 occasions and has received ‘nul points’ three times. It wasn’t until 2006 that Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest. Lordi represented the country in Athens with the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” scoring 292 points, a record total at the time.
