Finland: YLE reschedules the release of UMK 2021 acts & entries

Finland: YLE reschedules the release of UMK 2021 acts &entries
Wednesday, 16 December 2020

  • The Finnish national broadcaster, YLE , has made a change of plans regarding the release of the  acts and entries of the upcoming UMK 2021, the country's Eurovision national final. 

    YLE has changed the dates over which the contestants and songs of the next edition of UMK will be released. The revelation has been moved from January 19 to January 13 with the official press conference set for 13:00 pm local time. During the press conference the acts' names and song titles will be unveiled with the music videos to follow over the next seven days.

    Specifically, the music videos of the UMK 2021 competing songs will be presented on daily basis on YLETV1 with a 3 minute video starting on January 14 and with the last one to come out on January 22. The presentation of song will take place on the following dates:

    • January 14
    • January 15
    • January 18
    • January 19
    • January 20
    • January 21
    • January 22

    The final will be held at Tampere Mediapolis' TV studios, on February 20  and will be aired live on Yle TV1 and Yle Areena.

     

    Finland in Eurovision

    Finland has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 53 times since its debut in 1961. Finland won the contest for the first time in 2006 with Lordi's "Hard Rock Hallelujah". The country's best result before then was achieved by Marion Rung with the song "Tom Tom Tom" in 1973, which placed sixth.

    Finland has finished last in the contest eleven times, receiving "nul points" in 1963, 1965 and 1982. Since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, Finland has failed to reach the final eight times. In 2014, the country had its best result in eight years when Softengine finished 11th. In 2015, Finland finished last in the first semi-final with the shortest-ever Eurovision entry, "Aina mun pitää" performed by Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät.

    This year Aksel won the national final with the song “Looking Back”.  As the competition was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic the Finnish act never had the chance to perform on the Eurovision stage in Rotterdam.

     

     

    Source/Image: YLE