Audience’s in China won’t be seeing this year’s Eurovision final after the local broadcaster censored parts of the semi-finals broadcast.

Eurovision has strict rules for broadcasters and one of the big ones is you can’t censor out parts of the performances. When the first Semi-Final aired in China the local broadcaster took out the performance by Ireland’s Ryan O’Shaughnessy.

Ireland’s song Together features a performance from two male dancers who depict the break up of gay romance.

Mango TV who hold the broadcast rights in China aired the show live but censored the performances of Ireland and Albania. While Ireland’s performance featured a depicting of homosexuality, it’s unclear why Albania’s performance was censored – but it has been suggested that too many rainbow flags were seen in the crowd.

EBU, the company that runs the global Eurovision broadcast responded by immediately terminating their contract with the Chinese company.

“This is not in line with the EBU’s values of universality and inclusivity and our proud tradition of celebrating diversity through music. It is with regret that we will therefore immediately be terminating our partnership with the broadcaster and they will not be permitted to broadcast the second Semi-Final or the Grand Final.” a spokesperson said.

Ryan O’Shaughnessy welcomed the decision.

“I’d like to welcome the decision by the EBU to do that, because from the very start we have just said love is love.” the singer told the BBC. “It doesn’t matter whether it is between two guys, two girls, or guy and a girl. They haven’t taken this lightly and I feel this is a move in the right direction.”

Ireland is one of the favourites to the win the competition heading into the Sunday mornings final. Critics are describing this years field of entries as one of the most open in recent years with Ireland, Israel, Australia, France and Norway all gaining high praise. The favourite however remains Cyprus with Eleni Foureira’s performance of Fuego.

OIP Staff, image Thomas Anders EBU