UK to host Eurovision 2023

completemusicupdate.com:

The UK will host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, it has been confirmed. That was already very much expected, of course, after organiser the European Broadcasting Union concluded that it was not practical or safe to stage their 2023 event in Ukraine, despite it winning the 2022 Contest, because of the ongoing war in the country following Russia’s invasion earlier this year.With the UK in second place back in May, it was always likely that Eurovision 2023 would happen here, despite Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC – and politicians in the country – being keen to find a way to make the event happen somewhere in Ukraine.

The aim now is that the UK hosted event, led by the BBC, will still represent and celebrate Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.It will be the ninth time the UK has hosted the big old Song Contest, and the fifth time it has done so without being the winning country the previous year, even though usually the winning country does host the next year’s event.The BBC has stepped in before after other winning countries were unable to host the event, although in those cases not because of politics and war, but for financial reasons.

In most cases, the winning countries had usually hosted the event relatively recently and did not want to bear the costs of doing it all over again.Confirming the UK and BBC as the hosts of Eurovision 2023, the Contest’s Executive Supervisor Martin Österdahl said yesterday: “We’re exceptionally grateful that the BBC has accepted to stage the Eurovision Song Contest in the UK in 2023”.“The BBC has taken on hosting duties for other winning countries on four previous occasions”, he added.