United Kingdom: TaP Music's quest for the next Eurovision representative begins

United Kingdom: TaP Music's quest for the next Eurovision representative begins
Wednesday, 12 October 2022

  • TaP Music has announced that they have started their search for the next Eurovision representative who will perform on home soil representing the host nation in Liverpool. 

    They say you don't change a recipe when it brings success and that is the case for BBC and TaP Music. After this years collaboration that led to the selection of Sam Ryder and his 2nd place in Turin for the UK, BBC is sticking with TaP Music for Eurovision 2023. 

    TaP Music is one of the biggest global music publishing and management companies behind some of the world’s most successful pop artists, such as Dua Lipa, Lana del Rey and Ellie Goulding. The well established company will be teaming up with BBC once again to select the host nation's hoepful in Liverpool. 

    The quest for next year's Eurovision act is underway as TaP Music has confirmed via their social media that the process for searching the next British representative. 

     

    The United Kingdom in Eurovision 

    The United Kingdom participated in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 1957 and has been crowned winner five times (1967, 1969, 1975, 1981, 1997). The UK holds the record of finishing in the 2nd place the most times than every other country in the contest, specifically 15 times. Although big names of the music scene have represented the country in the past ( Sandie Shaw, Olivia Newton John, Lulu, Buckz Fizz, Brotherhod of Man, Cliff Richard, Sonia, Gina G, Bonny Tyler and many more) in the latest years its results are rather disappointing for a country with such a big share in the international music industry.

    In the latest years, UK followed the same formula of national selection in 2016 to select Joe and Jake who finished 24th. In  2017 through the same process Lucie Jones was decided to represent the UK ending in the final 15th while in Eurovision 2018 'You Decide 2018' winner, SuRie finished in the 24th place in the grand final. In 2019 Michael Rice won the national selection Eurovision You Decide 2019 and represented the British colours in Tel Aviv with his entry Bigger than Us, but scored another disappointing result for the Uk as he finished last in the Grand final.

    In 2020 James Newman was set to represent the country with the song “My last breath”. The song was signed by Ed Drewett, Adam Argyle and Iain James. Unfortunately we never got to see the song reach the Eurovision stage as the contest was cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, BBC internally decided to stick with James for Eurovision 2021 in Roterdam where the British act performed his song "Embers" , which sadly finished last with nul points by both, televoting and jury voting. 

    For 2022 BBC joined forces with TaP Music and selected Sam Ryder to perform 'Space Man' in Turin where he brought the UK back in the game achieving a 2nd place in the overall score receiving 466 points and after topping the jury voting.