Many Americans only came to learn about Europe's biggest competitive event outside of soccer, theEurovision Song Contestthanks to the Netflix filmThe Story of Fire Saga, starringWill FerrellandRachel McAdams, as the show was hard to access stateside. That's changing this year as Peacock has announced it will exclusively stream the biggest singing competition on its platform this year, and you better hurry up, because the show starts tonight.
For the uninitiated, theEurovision Song Contestis a yearly singing competition that brings together European countries, as well as Australia and Israel, to show off their catchiest and their weirdest musical acts. Pretty much every song performance in Ferrell's Eurovisionis based on an actual past performance onEurovision, from a heavy-metal band in demonic makeupto a vampire-soprano-god, to a band comprised entirely of Russian grandmas.
It seems, despite having a very popular film centered aroundEurovision, Netflix wasn't in the business of streaming the real deal, as Peacock picked up the rights to broadcast this year's competition. Back in 2019 Netflix had announced that it acquired the VOD rights toEurovisionfor streaming in the U.S., most likely in order to promote their ownEurovisionmovie. Once the2020 edition of the song contest was canceled due to the pandemic, it made sense for the streamer to just forget about the whole thing.
Peacock will stream this year's competition for audiences in the United States which will happen over three days this week, and offer both live and on-demand streaming. But it doesn't end this year, Peacock has announced that it will also stream next year'sEurovision Song Contestlive and on-demand exclusively.
This year'sEurovisionwill its first Semi-Final onTuesday, 18 May, 2021, 3:00 ET, then the second Semi-Final onThursday, 20 May, 2021, 3:00 ET, before the grand Final closes up the whole thing for this year thisSaturday, 22 May, 2021, 3:00 ET, on Peacock.