Jessica Mauboy Helps Eurovision With Ratings Boost

Jessica Mauboy's appearance at this year's Eurovision Song Contest provided broadcaster SBS with a palpable spike in ratings on Saturday night.

Coming off a viewer base of 444,000 for Friday night's first semi-final, Saturday's show – during which Mauboy completed her generally well received but still polarising performance of her track Sea Of Flags – yielded the contest's second-highest SBS figures ever, with 561,000 people tuning in to watch the spectacle (falling just short of 2013's historic grand final high of 595,000).

Further indicating it was indeed the Jess factor that drove the higher figures, a relatively sedate 476,000 viewers tuned in to watch colourful Austrian competitor Conchita Wurst take out the grand final prize.

In fact, 2014 was the first year since at least 2010 for which grand-final viewer numbers have taken a plunge – down on 2013's aforementioned haul, 2012's audience of 531,000, and 2011's base of 503,000 viewers, up from 2010's total of 366,000.