Tapio Hakasen has revealed in an interview with Teosto, more details about what to expect from UMK 2020, the Finnish selection process for Eurovision.
The first details of what people can expect from the reworked UMK for 2020 has been revealed in an interview with Teosto. Tapio Hakasen who is working on UMK 2020, and is the music manager at YleX explained that the:
We believe that through open competition, we can showcase Finnish music expertise in a diverse way, with different genres of music and different stages of career as artists and artists.
This is the first time since the 2017 contest in Kyiv, Ukraine that Finland has opened UMK back up to any interested singers and songwriters. Yle had opted to internally select their singer for Eurovision, and then use UMK as a song selection show.
The aim for UMK 2020 is for between 4 and 10 acts to compete in a single live final. In the run-up to the competition the broadcaster intends to hold preview shows to introduce the competing acts to the Finnish public.
The submissions window for UMK 2020 will open on November 1 and close on November 8.
Finland was represented by Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman with the song “Look Away” in Tel Aviv, Israel. Finland finished last in their semi-final scoring just 23 points. Finland received 14 points from the televote and 9 points from the juries.
Source: escXtra
Finland first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961, they debuted alongside Spain and Yugoslavia. Finland has finished last in the contest on 10 occasions and has received ‘nul points’ three times. It wasn’t until 2006 that Finland won the Eurovision Song Contest. Lordi represented the country in Athens with the song “Hard Rock Hallelujah” scoring 292 points, a record total at the time.
