Did you know? #Eurovision's primary business activity is as a TV news wire. The song contest was designed to show off their ability to use satellites to broadcast from all of the countries they cover at once. This is still a core part of the contest! When every country "calls in" their results, all of the representatives are broadcasting via satellites!

The song contest helps the news wire in other ways as well, in terms of access for reporters. Every country in the contest is also covered by the news wire. When they could no longer do news from Russia, then Russia also was excluded from the contest. Indeed, their ability to report on news in some countries would be very negatively impacted if those countries were excluded from the contest, as it's become very prestigious in it's own right.

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