How the UK achieved a master stroke and rediscovered its love for Eurovision

Eurovision – for some the TV event is an annual ritual tuning into a plethora of musical acts across the continent performing in weird and wacky outfits, and for others they can’t wait to grab their TV remote and turn off what they consider a snooze fest of mundane ballads. One thing’s for sure, Eurovision is capturing the hearts of Brits more than ever before and this year’s edition proved that the UK can once again be a major force at Europe’s premier music competition.

I’ll admit that the yearly song contest has been a guilty pleasure of mine ever since my first exposure of the iconic event watching Katrina and the Waves lift the coveted trophy in the late 90s with their catchy pop hit Love Shine A Light. Sadly this was also the last time I and many in my generation saw the United Kingdom triumph and similar to the England football team, it’s been constant disappointment since.

A mountain to climb

Although the UK have briefly flirted with the left hand side of the leader board during this time with Jessica Garlick achieving third place in 2001 and Jade Ewen securing a respectable fifth with the help of musical supremo Andrew Lloyd Webber, it’s been nothing short of a disaster for a nation considered one of the global powerhouses in music.

Five last places since 2003 – including the infamous and out of tune performance by Jemini in Latvia that opened us to much ridicule – and regular appearances towards the bottom of the scoring board, Brits have been wondering what we have done to deserve this embarrassing feat. Individuals have claimed that the song contest is political and a certain narrative has been emerging over the last few years that the rest of Europe doesn’t have a high opinion of us and have been punishing the UK for our decision to decouple from the EU in 2016.

Nul points

However there is a more plausible explanation as to why we keep finishing bottom of the pile or close to it. Quite simply, our song selections have been woeful and do not tick the boxes of what makes a good Eurovision entry.

Half of the votes at Eurovision are reserved for juries across participating countries in the contest and so failing to ‘understand the assignment’ (a popular phrase coined on Tiktok – more on this later) and meet the judges criteria pretty much guarantees you more chance of going home with ‘nul points’ than storming your way to victory with multiple ‘douze points’ across the board.

Members of the jury focus on a number of different aspects to score each act including vocal capacity, stage performance, composition, originality of the song and overall impression of the act. From taking a deep dive at the UK’s entries from the past few years, they have well and truly missed the mark on every occasion.

Just look at last year’s ‘nul points’ entry from James Newman with his rendition of his self-penned track ‘Embers’. He’s clearly talented otherwise he wouldn’t have made it to Rotterdam. However it was a lacklustre song which lacked originality or a wow factor – thus not understanding the brief. Just like PR, not answering the brief in a new business pitch will almost certainly set you up for failure and all that time and effort gone to waste.

He comes across a great guy that you’ll probably enjoy having a quiet beer with at the pub, but that’s not going to see off the rest of the competition and achieve top honours at Eurovision. Compare this to Maneksin, the Italian rock band that put on a unique and energetic performance of their song ‘Zitti e buoni’ which made both the juries and the millions at home in front of their TV across Europe want to vote for them in enormous numbers.

How TikTok came to the rescue

Ahead of this year’s UK selection and competition in Turin, you would have been forgiven to once again have your cynical hat on and think 2022 would produce another wooden spoon performance.

Step forward however cheeky chap and social media sensation Sam Ryder. The Essex singing sensation first rose to prominence during the first Covid lockdown when he entertained millions by posting musical covers of Adele and Michael Jackson on TikTok. By the end of 2020, he became the most followed UK artist on the social media platform and went into the competition with a whopping 12 million followers to his name.

The BBC realised that Eurovision was in danger of losing interest amongst the British public and that they needed to do something – and fast. It was as if the penny finally dropped at the corporation’s headquarters after two long decades of dismal song choices. Leveraging Sam’s popularity on one of the biggest and fastest growing social media platforms proved to be a shrewd move, showing that by being strategic about an artist and song choice will set you up for success.

The song that was entered was ‘Space Man’, an uplifting pop song that drew praise from millions both home and aboard and most importantly hit the jury’s criteria to a tee – an impeccable vocal performance, originality and a fantastic impression of the artist. Although the UK was pipped to the post by Ukraine with their infectious hip hop folk melody, the UK secured its best finish in over 20 years and Sam’s performance has, without a shadow of a doubt, changed both the British public and media’s attitudes towards the song contest for the better.

Rising like a phoenix

Twitter was alive with plenty of positive, engaging and light hearted commentary on the contest during the evening across different age groups, with many on social describing Sam’s performance as the UK’s best entry in years. Brits rekindled their love for the contest with TV viewing figures in the UK having revealed the final peaked at 10.6 million with an 80.3% audience share – matching figures of the FA Cup final between Liverpool and Chelsea that were broadcast simultaneously on the BBC and ITV’s flagship channels.

Hopefully Sam’s incredible performance will put to bed the narrative that the UK always finish last because of political reasons and that the BBC will take the contest seriously again, selecting songs that actually have a chance of winning. Another astute move by Britain’s main broadcaster next year and we might be able to go one better and finally dream of seeing the world’s greatest music competition back in the UK in 2024.

Written by Michael Grande, Senior Account Manager, Brand