Case study

Radio Television of Serbia on YouTube: the Eurovision Song Contest

Watch the channel on YouTube

Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) is a member of the Eurovision network and the oldest public broadcaster in the region. RTS selects Serbia’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest through national competitions, including Pesma za Evroviziju, in which artists and songwriters from across Serbia compete in a televised national final.

The format engages the Serbian audience and shows the country’s musical diversity on the international stage of the Eurovision Song Contest.

When Videomite took over all of RTS’s YouTube channels, we worked closely with RTS to stream the national competition live on YouTube, alongside the TV broadcast. The event could be watched anywhere in the world, in high quality, as a complement to the television coverage, and it reached audiences abroad that television could not.

The live stream of Serbia’s Eurovision selection on YouTube reached 640,000 viewers in three hours.

Pesma za Evroviziju on RTS

Challenge

This was the first live stream on any of RTS’s YouTube channels, and it was a big one to start with: an event with an international audience.

Approach

For a month before the live stream, we published YouTube Shorts about the event. We used the Community tab a lot to engage viewers and bring in subscribers. We scheduled the live stream five days ahead, so the live chat was full from the start.

Insights

We updated the list of blocked words during the stream. This kept the chat suitable for families and protected the event’s reputation.

Performance stats

  • 50Kpeak concurrent viewers On the live stream.
  • 50%subscriber growth In total channel subscribers, in one month.
  • 50%viewers from abroad Of everyone who watched the live stream.
  • 15+countries Where songs from the contest were trending.

After the live streams

After all three live streams of the selection, we made Shorts of the key moments of the competition. They brought more viewers to the recorded streams, raised engagement and reached new audiences.

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