Eight weeks ago, Microsoft announced a unique partnership with the European Broadcasting Union: as the official Technology Partner of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest, Microsoft took center stage to bring the competition’s music, excitement, and fun to the almost 200 million fans who tuned in to watch.
With a growing international audience and 40 participating countries, the ESC is undoubtedly one of the world’s most popular televised events. It is also an enormous technological challenge, with live audience voting, thousands of delegates and volunteers to coordinate, and terra bytes of video content to share with broadcasters around the world. Microsoft was working behind the scenes to make all this possible.
And what a result!
The European Song Contest companion app, based on Microsoft Azure, was downloaded by 1.24 million fans in 208 countries. On the ground 800 volunteers used Microsoft Lumia 535 and Yammer to stay in contact, and shared a total of 1,065 posts on Yammer, ensuring the team was always in-synch.
See for yourself how Microsoft technology helped everyone stay in tune on the big night!