Once again, the 2017 Italian entry reaches a new record threshold of Youtube views, becoming the first Eurovision song to reach more than 200 million views on Youtube.

The most viewed Eurovision video ever

Technically, the video isn’t a Eurovision video, since it was published by Francesco Gabbani’s Vevo youtube account, and not by the official Eurovision channel. But “Occidentali’s Karma” remains a Eurovision song.

The video’s views mainly took off in 2017, during the selection and the promotion seasons before Kyiv 2017. Here is a little history of the view-meter:

February 7th 2017 : 1st view (the video is put online)

March 3rd 2017 : 40 million views

April 27th 2017 : 100 million views

May 13th 2017 : 114,4 million views (day of the Eurovision final)

May 14th 2017 : 115,6 million views

August 9th 2017 : 150 million views

January 1st 2018 : 173,6 million views

September 16th 2018 : 200 million views

As you can see, more than half of the total viewcount comes from before Eurovision 2017.

“Occidentali’s Karma”, the story of a fan-favourite

“Occidentali’s Karma” won the Sanremo Festival on February 11th 2017 and quickly became the biggest fan-favorite for the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest. The song won the OGAE annual poll, and topped betting odds between its victory in Sanremo and the eve of the Grand Final, when Portugal’s “Amar Pelos Dois” passed Italy to become the new favorite (and eventually win the contest). Eventually, the fan-favorite ranked only 6th in the Grand Final, with 334 points. According to many, the staging was to blame for this disappointing results: the very strong impact it had made on the Sanremo stage could not be reproduced in Kyiv, and it was supposedly “too messy” for the average viewer.

A year later, this pattern seemed to repeat itself with Israel’s “Toy”. Netta had also been a fan-favorite since her song was revealed, and had also lost its first place in the betting odds to another entry (Cyprus). Journalists from many Eurovision websits (including ESCXTRA) thought the staging was also “too heavy” for the average viewer. However, in the end, Israel still won.

What did you think of Occidentali’s Karma? Was it your favourite too? Or at least did you think it would win? Tell us more on the comments below or on social media at @escxtra !