This morning I had the following drop into my inbox from the British Broadcasting Corporation (*dofs cap*) – Seems changes are afoot in the UK Final.
Six Acts, Three Songs, You Decide United Kingdom’s Eurovision Song Selection Show Returns in 2019
“Exciting changes are set for the United Kingdom’s Eurovision song selection show as a brand new location and format details are revealed for Eurovision: You Decide.
Presented by Mel Giedroyc and Måns Zelmerlöw, BBC Music’s Eurovision: You Decide will be broadcast live from MediaCity UK in Salford as the show comes to the North West of England for the very first time.
As well as a new home, there are also exciting format changes coming too, as from the hundreds of songs that have been submitted, three will be performed on the night by six different artists. The six acts will compete for the honour of representing the United Kingdom at the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
In the exciting new format, each of the three songs will be performed in two musically different ways, by two different acts. There will be three rounds of “song-offs”, with six acts performing in total.
Mel Balac, Creative Director for Entertainment BBC Studios and Executive Producer of Eurovision: You Decide said: “This year the three songs presented to the United Kingdom have been selected with the help of an international jury. Our exciting “euro-version” format will give fans the chance to compare and contrast these fantastic songs in a fresh, new way and deliver the United Kingdom the artist it deserves to fly the flag out in Tel Aviv in May.”
Kate Phillips, Controller of Entertainment Commissioning at the BBC said: “Forget about a sing-off, next year it’s all about the song-off as we once again try to marry a great singer with a great song, one which could finally get us on the left hand side of the leader board. We may be leaving the EU but we are still determined to win Eurovision again one day!”
All of this including live music performances from guest artists and lots more besides, plus with BBC Radio 2’s Ken Bruce broadcasting his show live from Salford on the morning of the show, Eurovision: You Decide 2019 will be bigger and better than ever before.
Eurovision: You Decide (1×90) will be broadcast on BBC Two in February 2019, as part of BBC Music’s programming on the channel.“
So the key take aways are that it’s back to a studio based final with even the obligatory brexit reference (which didn’t need to be put in did it BBC?” – Will it work? – Is it all too confusing? – will anyone care? Well we do! – Watch this space.
It’s not a question of format, it’s a question of song and singer.
Germany did something similar in 2017.
We all know where did they finish.
A few notes and observations
The Location
Media City Studios Salford. These are the studios likely to be used for Eurovision You Decide (EYD)
http://www.dock10.co.uk/thestudios/
There are four listed as being capable of holding an audience, HQ 1 through HQ4.
HQ1 is UK’s biggest multi-camera TV studio for major productions, with an audience capacity of 1,000.
HQ2 holds 600
HQ3 holds 200
HQ4 holds 300
These are maximum capacities.
As a comparison the Brighton Dome (EYD 2018) has a capacity of 1850, By no means huge but getting on for twice the capacity of HQ1. There will be less tickets available, that’s a certainty. However I would imagine they’ll be free for those lucky enough to get one.
The Format
Only three songs! Let’s be honest there were really only three songs last year, none of them were that good in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong SuRie was brilliant, and if she’d had a decent song to sing would made the left side of the score board. Six performers, I wonder will there really be that many?
Best case scenario we’ll see three good Eurovision songs, each performed well, in two contrasting styles.
Worst case, If there isn’t a good song in the competition together with a singer capable for selling it well on the night, it won’t matter how many songs there are or how many styles they are sung in.