United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006

Eurovision Song Contest 2006
Country	United Kingdom
National selection
Selection process	Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up
Selection date(s)	4 March 2006
Selected entrant	Daz Sampson
Selected song	"Teenage Life"
Selected songwriter(s)	John Matthews; Daz Sampson;
Finals performance
Final result	19th, 25 points
United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest

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.

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.

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.

Results

Artist	Song	Place	Total	North England	SE England	Scotland	Midlands	Web	Northern Ireland	Wales	SW England	Mobile
Goran Kay	Play Your Game	6	14	-	-	2	2	2	-	2	-	6
Kym Marsh	Whisper To Me	4	53	6	6	4	6	4	6	6	6	9
Daz Sampson	Teenage Life	1	121	12	8	8	12	12	8	12	12	37
City Chix	All About You	3	55	4	4	12	4	6	4	-	4	17
Four Story	Hand On My Heart	5	17	2	2	-	-	-	2	4	2	5
Antony Costa	It's A Beautiful Thing	2	96	8	12	6	8	8	12	8	8	26
Scores are shown in the order they were awarded on the night

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 a Eurovision news website 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.

At Eurovision

As a member of the Big Four, the United Kingdom automatically qualified to compete in final held in 20 May. Daz Sampson was drawn to perform fifteenth in the line-up. At the end of the contest, the song finished 19th with a respectable 25 points. Although lowly placed, the United Kingdom still managed to receive points from ten different countries. Coming up to the 1,000th song, the United Kingdom's entry this year was the 994th song in the Eurovision Song Contest's history.

Points Awarded by United Kingdom

Semi final

12 points	Finland
10 points	Lithuania
8 points	Ireland
7 points	Cyprus
6 points	Sweden
5 points	Iceland
4 points	Bosnia and Herzegovina
3 points	Armenia
2 points	Albania
1 point	Poland

Final

12 points	Finland
10 points	Lithuania
8 points	Ireland
7 points	Greece
6 points	Romania
5 points	Germany
4 points	Sweden
3 points	Turkey
2 points	Latvia
1 point	Russia