United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006

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The United Kingdom was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 by Daz Sampson with the song "Teenage Life". He finished in 19th place with 25 points.

[edit] National Final

On 4 March 2006, six artists competed to win Making Your Mind Up, the annual BBC television show which sees the selection of the United Kingdom's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

[edit] Presenters

The show was hosted by Terry Wogan and Natasha Kaplinsky.

Opinions on each song and performance were given by a panel consisting of four celebrities: singer Kelly Osbourne, radio and television show host Jonathan Ross, television presenter Fearne Cotton, and Strictly Come Dancing panellist Bruno Tonioli. When asked to predict the winner, Osbourne and Ross thought Daz Sampson would win whilst Cotton and Tonioli opted for Antony Costa.

The results were allocated on a regional basis with additional votes from the internet and text votes. Each region awarded 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 points to the five most popular songs, with votes from the internet being counted as an additional region for this purpose. Celebrities delivered these results in a deliberate echo of the Eurovision Song Contest itself. After the regional votes, each song's score was 'topped up' with one point for each percentage of the text votes received.

[edit] Results

[edit] Spokespeople

The celebrities announcing the results of each vote were:

• Kelli Young - North of England
• Alistair Appleton - South East England
• Michelle McManus - Scotland
• Rustie Lee - Midlands
• Javine Hylton - Web vote
• Roy Walker - Northern Ireland
• Maggot - Wales
• Simon Grant - South West England
• Elena Paparizou - Mobile phone vote

[edit] Minor controversies

Even prior to the actual broadcast of the show, allegations emerged that both the winning song, Teenage Life, and the runner-up, It's a Beautiful Thing, had both been commercially released prior to 1 October 2005, which would disqualify either song from representing the UK under European Broadcasting Union (EBU) rules. The claims were made by the Greek Eurovision fansite www.oikotimes.com, although the BBC responded with a rebuttal of the claims [1].

The original version of Teenage Life was released by Spacekats in March 2004 on the Riff Raff label through Juno Records. It was, and still is, commercially available although only as a 'White Label' record. The BBC maintain that as the song is only available as a 'White Label' it therefore complies with EBU rules.

Teenage Life includes a choir of young girls and during the performance on Making Your Mind Up their voices were mimed by older dancers. Such a performance would fall foul of EBU rules which prohibits miming and restricts the number of performers allowed on stage (i.e. no choirs). For the performance at the Eurovision, the vocals were sung live by the dancers. One of the dancers was replaced due to the complications that would have been involved in taking her to the event.

[edit] Unofficial representation in Eurovision

Despite Daz being the official entrant, UK was unofficially representing Eurovision for other countries.

• France used a British cellist called Matheson Bayley.
• One of the backing dancers for the Maltese entry was a British dancer.
• All of the Turkish dancers were British.
• The Irish entrant Brian Kennedy is from Northern Ireland, part of the UK.

[edit] External links

• Eurovision Song Contest The official site of the ESC
• ESC Today An unofficial fan website
• Making Your Mind Up BBC Radio 2 website
• Teenage Life Website Listen to and download the winning song