I think it would be fair to say that this year did not go to plan for the BBC and its Eurovision delegation. On the first of January, they found themselves first in the betting odds amid massive media attention over their selection of music superstar Olly Alexander. Also back in January BBC Music’s Commissioning Executive, Will Wilkin told The Eurotrip Podcast that their ambition was to win the competition. The UK’s head of delegation speaking to the same publication stated that he “wasn’t concerned” about how the song would do. So where did it all go wrong for the UK?
Let’s go back to the start:
It’s December 2023 and for many Eurovision fans memories of Liverpool are still ringing around in their head as the new Eurovision season is just getting underway, when the BBC drops a bombshell by announcing on Strictly Come Dancing that Olly Alexander would be the UK’s representative at the 2024 contest in Sweden.
Alexander had been rumoured in the press a few months prior but was mostly dismissed as the press often propose big names early into the season but this time it was true, it also came as a shock as the UK very rarely says anything about their entry this early.
But this is also where things start to go downhill for the UK, the bookmakers instantly responded by moving the United Kingdom to first in the betting odds and expectations were set high for what Olly was going to do for the United Kingdom. This then followed in January with various interviews where the UK delegation made clear to fans that they felt the song was good enough to win Eurovision.
But this was pretty much it for quite some time, it was announced that Danny L Harle the songwriter behind Dua Lipa’s recent hit track “Houdini” would also be writing Olly’s Eurovision song which built hype further until the clip was released.
On February 7th the BBC released the first teaser of Olly Alexanders’ Eurovision song. And the response to this was fine, it was true to his sound. Importantly, however, the majority of people who listened to the teaser believed that they were listening to a pre-chorus or a build-up to a big moment in the actual song and it ended up being just under a month later that they found out they were incorrect.
On March 1 2024, Olly Alexander officially released his Eurovision song “Dizzy”. The BBC did a huge hour-by-hour countdown on their social media channels to the release of the song – in the build-up to the release, many people close to the UK delegation including Rylan spoke about how good they felt the song was. So for a country that was first in the betting odds and had now come to the conclusion of hyping its entry up for three months what was the result? Well, it wasn’t exactly brilliant for the United Kingdom – people didn’t hate the song many thought it was quite good but it didn’t go any further than that. In the clip that we were shown a month ago, it turns out that was just the chorus and the big moment in the song – well it didn’t exist.
It would be fair to say that the response to the song was underwhelming and this seemed to come as a shock to the UK delegation who seemingly felt it was a contender to win Eurovision. The bookmakers responded by removing the United Kingdom from its spot at the top of the betting odds.
Let’s so lets first look into the song and why it wasn’t good enough for Eurovision:
The song was perfectly pleasant it was easy to listen to it had all the qualities of a good radio song. It just so happens that a lot of these qualities are the same as what makes for a bad Eurovision song. It didn’t have any “wow” moments in the song and simply put wasn’t at all memorable which is quite a problem when the song needs to stand out when compared to twenty-five other songs.
Then came the pre-party performances which also didn’t do much to quell fans’ fears about the song. The UK delegation ended up asking the organisers of the various pre-parties not to share the footage of the United Kingdom’s performances.
At Eurovision
Things did start to briefly look up for the UK again with an enthusiastic description of the UK’s rehearsal and pictures of said rehearsal boosting hopes among the song fans – also a promise of a different ending to the song to hopefully add that “wow” moment it was missing.
![](https://dailyvision.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/020524_Alma-Bengtsson-EBU_9905-1-1024x683.jpg)
Image courtesy of Alma Bengtsson / EBU
So where did this end up going wrong for the UK too:
Well while the staging looked impressive in pictures it didn’t match that same impressiveness when seen on television – it looked like the sort of performance you would see at an awards show but what it didn’t look or feel like was a Eurovision performance. The camera cuts were frequent and while it was supposed to make the viewer feel “Dizzy” as in the song title it ended up just looking messy to some people. Ultimately, however, the staging was never the main issue this was perfectly fine but the staging does nothing if the song it is being performed to isn’t up to scratch and this was the main issue here.
The song still lacked anything to make it stand out from the pack and the changes to the end of the song that were supposed to make the song more memorable didn’t really work. The acapella moment as he walked out of the box didn’t improve how memorable the song was and in the semi-finals it even had me worried that all they had done was expose how out of breath Olly was from dancing around in the box – but this was much better for the Grand Final. And then the high note at the end of the song was almost too little too late in this case – the opening two and a half minutes of the song were so boring that many people had already mentally tuned out before the wow moment came in.
So combine the fact that the song really was not that memorable with the fact it was performing at position 13 right in the middle of the pack and you have your recipe for a song that receives zero points in the televote.
Ultimately the main problem this year was that the BBC almost put too much faith in Olly Alexander, I don’t mean this in a bad way I just feel that the reaction from fans’ when the song was first released showed that many of them already knew that this song likely was not good enough to do well in Eurovision so why did the UK delegation not notice that before hand? Perhaps they were so focused on the names attached to the song (Alexander and Harle) that they didn’t take the time to objectively decide if it was good enough – more dangerously of course is that they did take the time and came to the conclusion it was good enough even though it wasn’t.
Where does the United Kingdom go from here?
The UK is not quite back in the trenches just yet – despite the poor showing from the televote the song still finished in 18th place giving the UK their second-best result of the decade. But realistically the UK delegation only has one year left to prove that Sam Ryders’ result was not a fluke but the start of a change. In 2023 the poor result could be excused as the main delegation was focused on producing the show and this year while less forgivable it is important to remember that the Netherlands had moments where they stumbled as they built towards winning in 2019 but if the UK is serious about this they have to prove next year that they have learnt from the mistakes of this year.
I think realistically, however, if the BBC wants to improve the results then the delegation has to have a complete overhaul – year after year they try the same basic pop tracks and year after year they get poor results. The UK’s current head of delegation has guided the UK to two last-place finishes and other than Sam Ryder pretty much all very poor results. I get the impression that the delegation doesn’t know how to do well at Eurovision and if that is the case it is time for them to go and be replaced by people who do know how to do well at Eurovision.
I don’t know how the BBC will select their artist next year I imagine they will use an internal selection again next year but I think the BBC needs to broaden their horizons. Maybe they should have a look through BBC Introducing and find a good indie talent from somewhere – this would mean the BBC would have to fund the promotion of the act as they are unlikely to have a label but the BBC is the biggest broadcaster in the world and operate the biggest radio station in Europe so I’m certain they can promote the song well enough on their own.
Alternatively of course the BBC could return to a national selection and allow the public a say in their act. In more recent years the use of a national selection did not provide good results for the UK but one of the biggest issues with the format was that songs were written and given to artists as opposed to letting artists write their own songs and express themselves – they also put these national finals on BBC Two and other side channels giving it a smaller viewer base and less representative results. The BBC could go down the route of Benidorm Fest in holding a smaller-scale national final but placing it on BBC One on a Saturday night at prime time with an open submission for artists. Ultimately national selections were used to give the UK all five of their Eurovision victories.
I don’t think the future is necessarily bleak for the United Kingdom but they need someone with a more open mind on the delegation and need to broaden away from just sending pop music. Even a ballad – like France this year – could provide a good result for the UK, since the juries were removed from the semi-finals less jury friendly songs make it through meaning in the final the televote is split between a lot of songs while the juries can congregate around a few, with the UK not taking part in the semi-finals they could exploit this by sending a more jury friendly song (Reminder, Germany did this and came 12th this year).
Maybe this time next year we will be talking about heading back to the United Kingdom for another Eurovision Song Contest or maybe we will be talking about another bleak result but if the BBC and UK delegation have the solution next year is the time to show it.