The United Kingdom held a national pre-selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1967. It was held on 25 February 1967 and presented by Rolf Harris. Harris's weekly show had been the showcase for the five songs in the competition, which had been performed in successive weeks prior to the final. Harris himself would be the BBC's commentator for the final in Vienna.
The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1966, with the BBC selecting Kenneth McKellar to perform all the entries under consideration. After performing the five shortlisted songs weekly on BBC1's Kenneth McKellar's A Song For Everyone, the final was held on 27 January 1966 and presented by David Jacobs. McKellar released an extended play maxi single featuring the five songs, subsequently releasing a single featuring the winner and the runner up, which reached number 30 in the UK singles chart.
The United Kingdom held a national selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1964. It was held on 7 February 1964 and presented by David Jacobs.
The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1968. It was held on 5 March 1968 and presented by Cilla Black as a special edition of her debut BBC1 TV series 'Cilla'. Black had been the BBC's first choice to sing the 1968 UK entry, but she had turned it down as she did not believe any nation was likely to win back-to-back contests. As in 1967 when the UK won with Sandie Shaw, a current pop singer, Cliff Richard, was chosen to sing the song. Unlike the last three UK selections, the songs were not presented at all before the final. Instead, for the first time, the songs were broadcast twice in the final, with the performances repeated immediately after Richard had sung them successively.
The United Kingdom held a televised national pre-selection broadcast on BBC1 to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1969 with Scottish singer Lulu chosen to represent the UK.
The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1970.
The United Kingdom held a national preselection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1973. It was held on 24 February 1973 and presented by Cilla Black as part of her BBC1 series Cilla. Cliff Richard performed all of the six finalists in the final, where the performances were then immediately repeated. He had previously performed one of the songs weekly in the run up to the final. Richard had been permitted to choose two songs for the shortlist of 12 entries, from which a panel including his manager and producer selected the final six. Viewers cast votes by postcards through the mail to choose the winning song and "Power to All Our Friends" was the winner with 125,505 votes, very nearly four times the score of the runner-up "Come Back Billie-Jo" which polled 34,209. Both songs were released as the A & B-Sides of a single, which reached No.4 in the UK singles chart, Cliff's first top 5 hit since "Congratulations" in 1968 and his last until 1979. For the first and only time in the history of the contest, all the entries from the UK final reached the UK singles chart. Following the release of the top two songs, the remaining four were issued as an extended play Eurovision Special single, which reached No.29 in the charts later in the year. The lead track, "Help It Along" was later released as the title track of Cliff's 1974 live album of Christian gospel music. All six songs were eventually made available on CD compilations. Richard recorded German, Spanish and French versions of the winning song. Eurovision Song Contest 1971 winner Séverine reached No.46 in the French singles chart with her French-language version of the song, "Il faut chanter la vie".
The United Kingdom held a national pre-selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1974. It was held on 23 February 1974 and presented by Jimmy Savile as part of the BBC1 TV series Clunk, Click... As It Happens, with Olivia Newton-John selected to perform all of the entries, in part due to the recommendation of her close friend Cliff Richard. Originally, as with 1973, Cilla Black's 1974 nine-part BBC series was scheduled to feature the 'Song for Europe' process, but Black was uncomfortable at promoting another female singer (Newton-John) each week throughout the series' run and in a rather last minute decision, the BBC arranged to move the process to another show. This necessitated a truncating of the regularly established format of the chosen artist performing one song a week on the given series, so it was planned that Newton-John would perform two songs a week for three weeks once the series started. However, a BBC strike led to the cancellation of the first show, so another revision was needed and Olivia performed three songs a show over two programmes. In the final, her performances were immediately repeated before viewers were asked to cast votes via postcards through the mail to choose the winner. An extremely low postal vote led to Long Live Love winning with just 27,387 votes.
The United Kingdom held a national pre-selection to choose the song that would go to the Eurovision Song Contest 1975. The Shadows were selected by the BBC to represent the UK, after BBC executive Bill Cotton had stated that he specifically wanted a group to sing for Britain in 1975. His choice was met with a negative response by the UK media, the song writing community and the general public. Members of the group were responsible for two of the six shortlisted songs, causing a further outcry from the music publishers associations. The Shadows performed one song a week for six weeks on the BBC1 TV series Lulu, hosted by 1969 Eurovision joint winner Lulu. Uniquely, although the group were seen performing weekly, in fact they only recorded one performance of each of the six songs in December 1974, for a special edition of the series broadcast on 15 February 1975. These performances were then shown individually for the six week period, before being shown back-to-back in the final, followed by an immediate repeat of all six. Viewers cast votes via postcard for their favourite song and the winning entry announced on 22 February was "Let Me Be the One" which received 17,477 votes, the lowest published figure known for a winning song in the UK finals that used either voting by mail or telephone. The choice of The Shadows led to calls from the Music Publishers Association for the songwriters and composers to be allowed to select the artist of their choice to perform the songs in future UK selections for Eurovision and the low postal vote persuaded the BBC that a new format was indeed needed. This was inaugurated in 1976. The winning song was written by Paul Curtis, who won the Song for Europe contest another three times, making him the most successful writer in the history of the UK selection process. He also wrote a further 21 songs that reached the UK finals. "Let Me Be the One" became the record ninth British entry to place 2nd in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Playing host to the Eurovision Song Contest 1977, the United Kingdom was expected to, and did, send an entry to the Contest, which was held in Wembley, London.
The United Kingdom was represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 by Belle and the Devotions with the song "Love Games". It was chosen as the British entry through the A Song for Europe national selection process and placed seventh at Eurovision, receiving 63 points.
The United Kingdom competed in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999, held on 29 May 1999 at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Israel. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) organised a public selection process to determine its entry for the contest, The Great British Song Contest 1999. Eight songs competed over two rounds, with four songs selected through a radio-broadcast semi-final to advance to the televised final round, held on 7 March 1999, where viewers selected the winning entry through televoting. Girl group Precious received the most votes and were selected to represent the nation in the contest with the song "Say It Again".
Eurovision: You Decide is the most recent name of a BBC television programme that was broadcast annually to select the United Kingdom's entry into the Eurovision Song Contest. The show had previously gone under several other names, including Festival of British Popular Songs (1957), Eurovision Song Contest British Final (1959–1960), The Great British Song Contest (1996–1999), Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up (2004–2007), Eurovision: Your Decision (2008), and Eurovision: Your Country Needs You (2009–2010), but was known, for most of its history, as A Song for Europe.
John Barry Mason was an English songwriter. A leading songwriter of the 1960s, he wrote the bulk of his most successful songs in partnership with Les Reed. Mason gained many gold and platinum awards for his work including five Ivor Novello Awards, the most recent of them in 1998.
Kathy Kirby was an English singer, reportedly the highest-paid female singer of her generation. She is best known for her cover version of Doris Day's "Secret Love" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest where she finished in second place. Her popularity peaked in the 1960s, when she was one of the best-known and most-recognised personalities in British show business.
The United Kingdom has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 63 times. It first took part in the second contest in 1957 and has entered every year since 1959. Along with Sweden and the Netherlands, the UK is one of only three countries with Eurovision victories in four different decades. It is one of the "Big Five" countries, along with France, Germany, Italy and Spain, that are automatically prequalified for the final each year as they are the biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The British public broadcaster, the BBC, broadcasts the event and has, on multiple occasions, organised different national selection processes to choose the British entry. The United Kingdom has won the Eurovision Song Contest five times, and has finished as runner-up on a record fifteen occasions. The UK has hosted the contest a record eight times, four times in London and once each in Edinburgh (1972), Brighton (1974), Harrogate (1982) and Birmingham (1998).
Sandie Shaw, is a retired English singer and a psychotherapist. One of the most successful British female singers of the 1960s, she had three UK number one singles with "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" (1964), "Long Live Love" (1965) and "Puppet on a String" (1967). With the latter, she became the first British entry to win the Eurovision Song Contest. She returned to the UK Top 40, for the first time in 15 years, with her 1984 cover of the Smiths song "Hand in Glove". Shaw announced her retirement from the music industry in 2013.
"I Belong" is a song that served as the United Kingdom's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965. Its music was written by singer Daniel Boone, and its lyrics were written by Phil Peters. It was performed at Eurovision by Kathy Kirby, where it came in 2nd place, losing to Luxembourg's "Poupée de cire, poupée de son", performed by France Gall. Kirby also recorded the song as a single, and it peaked on the music charts at No. 36 in Britain and No. 5 in Singapore.
The United Kingdom participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018. The British entry for the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal, was selected via the national final Eurovision: You Decide, organised by the British broadcaster BBC. On 16 November 2017, it was announced that Måns Zelmerlöw, winner of the 2015 contest for Sweden, would join the show as co-host alongside Mel Giedroyc. The national final took place on 7 February 2018 at the Brighton Dome. Six acts competed in the national final, with the song "Storm" performed by SuRie being selected the winner.
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