BBC scraps public vote to select UK Eurovision entry

The BBC has scrapped the public vote to select the UK’s Eurovision Song Contest entry and asked a record label to find a winning formula.

This year’s dismal showing, in which Michael Rice came last with just 11 points - the winner scored 498 - proved to be the final straw.

Traditionally, the public chooses the UK entry from a shortlist of performers in a televised audition show. But from next year, responsibility will be placed in the hands of BMG, a company whose artists include Kylie Minogue, Boy George and Pete Doherty.

The company also has a publishing arm with dozens of songwriters on its books. Under the new arrangement, it will provide a song and select an artist to perform it.

Eurovision has come to represent an annual humiliation for the UK, and some fans have suggested it is time to withdraw from the contest.

But the BBC is determined to fight back, and believes that professionalising the selection process will improve the showing when at the 2020 contest in Rotterdam.

Kate Phillips, controller of entertainment commissioning at the BBC, said: “Our commitment to finding the right song has never been higher and this collaboration with BMG, who have access to world class songwriters, is a genuinely exciting prospect and I am certain that together we can find the best song and artist possible for 2020.”

BMG has had previous success in the contest, publishing Sweden’s 2015 winning entry.

The UK, along with France, Germany, Spain and Italy, has automatic entry to the Eurovision final. But it has not had a winner since 1997, when Katrina and the Waves triumphed with Love Shine A Light.

Every year there are accusations of political voting. When Rice came last in May with his song, Bigger Than Us, he told The Sun: “I always knew I was going to come in this position because of Brexit. If it was Gary Barlow or Elton John, they probably would have come last too.”