Eurovision 2024 is on its way and little by little we are getting more details about the different countries that are going to take part in the contest, whose complete list of participants is expected to be known in the next few days. The United Kingdom has unveiled the first details of how next May’s competition will be broadcast on the British public broadcaster.
The BBC has finally confirmed its participation in Eurovision 2024 in a statement. The co-host of last year’s Eurovision Song Contest not officially confirmed its presence in Malmö next year until today. Moreover, due to the success of the last edition of the contest, the BBC has decided to go one step further in its commitment to Eurovision, despite the poor musical results of 2023, and will broadcast the entire contest on its first channel.
United Kingdom: the search for the representative and song has been carried out over the summer
The BBC has also confirmed that the search for the song and artist to represent the United Kingdom at Eurovision 2024 has been conducted over the summer, under the direction of Lee Smithurst, executive producer of BBC Studios, and Will Wilkin, executive curator of BBC Music.
The UK broadcaster is not giving any further details at this stage, stating that “further information about the United Kingdom‘s participation in Eurovision 2024 in Malmö, including the song with which the country will be represented, will be announced in due course “, which would point to a new internal election.
What is certain, and what was already announced a few weeks ago, is that TAP Music, which until now was in charge of choosing the artist and song for Eurovision, will not repeat for Eurovision 2024 and now it seems that the BBC would have chosen completely internally with their teams who will represent the country next year.
BBC to broadcast all of Eurovision 2024 on its first channel
In the statement in which the BBC confirmed its participation in Eurovision 2024, it also announced that all the shows of the contest to be held in Malmö on 7, 9 and 11 May 2024 will be broadcast live on its first channel BBC One, following the success of last year’s edition. As usual, all three shows will also be broadcast on its BBC iPlayer platform
It will be the first time that the BBC, not being the host or co-host of the contest, will broadcast all the shows on its main channel, which shows a clear commitment of the network to the European contest despite the poor result of last year’s edition in terms of music, but not in terms of audience figures, positioning itself as the leading content with the three broadcasts that week.
The 2023 edition of Eurovision set a record in the history of the event in the United Kingdom, with the final averaging 10.7 million viewers, the highest 28-day audience recorded since the current measurement was introduced in 2002. The final also had record viewership among 16-34 year olds, achieving the best figures since 2011. The Eurovision semi-finals, also broadcast on BBC One, further underpinned the success of the show with record audiences for both semi-final 1 with 2.6 million viewers, and semi-final 2 with 2.5 million viewers since they have been held.
United Kingdom at Eurovision
The United Kingdom is one of the countries with the most participations in the Eurovision Song Contest, having started participating in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1957. It has won Eurovision 5 times (1967, 1969, 1976, 1981 and 1997).
In 2019, the United Kingdom became the country with the longest continuous participation in the contest, since 1959. It made its debut in 1957 and was absent only at the inaugural edition and in 1958.
In recent years, the United Kingdom has not been at its best in the festival, achieving very poor results with its various nominations. In 2021 it was represented by James Newman after he was chosen for 2020 and the festival was cancelled by COVID-19. The artist finished in last position with “Embers” with an absolute zero as he received 0 points from the jury and televote, the first time this had happened since the change in voting in 2016.
After this major setback, the BBC stepped up its efforts to provide quality music for the festival, and together with the record label TaP Music, Sam Ryder, a well-known tiktoker with thousands of hits behind him, was chosen internally and his song “Space man” got a fantastic second place.
For 2023, and as hosts of the festival after Ukraine was unable to host it on its territory, they sought to repeat the formula with Mae Muller and her “I Wrote a Song”. Despite her great success in the British charts and with the public, she came last in the festival.