On May 2, several media outlets reported that Srbuk’s video clip, representing Armenia at Eurovision, is “the second most watched Eurovision music video ever.” The article, however, gives false information.

The article, published by rusarminfo.ru, on Shant TV company’s website, Haykakan Zhamanak and a number of other media outlets announced that Armenia’s video was the second most watched one and that the first was The Netherlands’, and the third most-watched vieo was Sweden’s.

Journalist Alen Avagyan, who had been conducting research for his Master’s thesis on Eurovision PR, noticed that the material was problematic.

There are three claims in the article that either do not correspond to reality or which reflect something incomplete. However, the incorrect text has been republished word for word across a few websites.

Srbuk is the third not the second

The article claims that Srbuhi Sargsyan’s song is the second in the list of most widely watched.” That is not so. The official YouTube channel of Eurovision, the Netherlands’ representative with 6.37 million views is followed by Malta’s performer with 6.2 million views. Armenia is in third place with 4.6 million views.

The most-watched Eurovision song is an Italian performer

The article points out that “the first place is taken by the Dutch representative’s song Arcade with 6.3 million views.”

It should be taken into consideration that besides the Eurovision YouTube channel, clips are often posted separately in the official channels of singers.

The Netherlands is only the first in the Eurovision Song Contest’ official channel, and the Italian representative’s music video in their channel (from the time that this article was written) has 76 million views, about ten times more than Holland.

Not one of the media outlets mentioned that the article about the “Most Viewed Videos off Eurovision” refers only to the YouTube content of the official channel.

Not Sweden but Switzerland

Finally, the article argues that “Sweden’s representative’s She got Me was in the third place, with 3.04 million views.” This song is performed not by the representative from Sweden but from Switzerland. And it isn’t in the third place of the official channel of the competition.

Karine Ghazaryan