Finland suffered some lean results at Eurovision through the 2010s, but it’s now on the verge of a Eurovision win. Together with Finnish experts, Callum Rowe investigates how broadcaster Yle has turned around its fortunes.
When Finland came second in last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, it wasn’t by accident. Käärijä’s placing was the result of years of hard work and trial and error from the broadcaster in, what insiders call, the “loud, punkish and self-ironic country”.
In 2011, Yle came up with a new format for a television show. The initial idea for Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) was to give a springboard to new artists, for it to be used as the selection process for the Eurovision Song Contest, and, in the event that Eurovision was no longer part of Yle’s broadcast calendar, for Finns to have a Saturday night entertainment show. Its first edition didn’t yield an immediate return on investment at Eurovision, with Pernilla Karlsson failing to reach the Grand Final.
UMK bore fruit for the first time in 2013. Pop diva Krista Siegfrids took the song Marry Me to the Eurovision Grand Final, causing undue controversy for a same-sex on-stage kiss with one of her backing singers in the process. Even though she placed 24th, she is lauded as a champion by fans and those involved with UMK, especially its Show Producer, Elias Koskimies. “2013 was the first step to where we are now. Krista was very confident, loves Eurovision, and her vibe spread through the whole production team. She was a pioneer,” says Koskimies.
One year later, the band that won UMK but were desperately close to not having the chance of being in the mix in the first place; Softengine submitted their song Something Better less than one hour before Yle closed its submission window. Something Better was the flavour of Finnish music at the time, combining EDM with rock. Aged between 17 and 19, the members of the band were incredibly young when they went to Eurovision, but their 11th place at Eurovision – Finland’s best since it won in 2006 – “gave us hope” according to UMK’s Executive Producer, Anssi Autio. Koskimies, too, says it “gave another added boost” to the UMK team.
“There is so much more to Eurovision than just the rankings. You can still move the needle even if you don’t qualify.”
Matti Myllyaho
In 2015, Finland entered an era to forget. Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät took part in UMK aiming to raise awareness of Down Syndrome. The punk-rock band won UMK, but their performance of Aina Mun Pitää didn’t resonate with Eurovision viewers, and the band failed to advance from the Semi-Finals. “Having Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät at Eurovision was a super bold move. It was the right choice, but perhaps viewers were confused by it,” Koskimies concedes. His colleague and UMK’s Associate Show Producer Matti Myllyaho agrees: “There is so much more to Eurovision than just the rankings. You can still move the needle even if you don’t qualify.”
“If you are not prepared, there is too little time to get ready after you win UMK accidentally.”
Anssi Autio
If 2015’s choice was bold, 2016’s was anything but. Sandhja’s funky dance-pop song Sing It Away wasn’t the audience’s favourite in UMK, but a sizable result from the juries meant it won the show overall and denied fan-favourite Saara Aalto. The result was a surprise to many, not least Autio who reckons Sandhja won UMK “accidentally” which led to another dismal result at Eurovision. “Sandhja wasn’t ready for Eurovision, and neither was her record company. If you are not prepared, there is too little time to get ready after you win UMK accidentally,” Autio admits.
Norma John won UMK in 2017. Penned and performed by Lasse Piirainen and Leena Tirronen, Blackbird is a dark and moody ballad. Despite the song’s success nationally, it wasn’t so popular internationally; Blackbird didn’t make it to the Eurovision Grand Final. “Blackbird wasn’t a popular song, but it was art,” Autio says. Piirainen doesn’t agree with Autio’s description of it being “art”, instead saying that it “wasn’t trying to be anything more than it was”. Piirainen is down-to-earth about his own victory, despite not advancing to the Grand Final. “It was heartwarming how many people understood the song,” he says.
The results at Eurovision over those three years didn’t cause any crisis meetings to be called at Yle, and production for UMK 2018 ploughed on as normal. However, something forced Yle’s hand. On September 4, 2017, the UMK Instagram account uploaded a photo of a hard drive which it said contained all the songs submitted for consideration for the show in 2018. However, none of the songs on that hard drive made it to the UMK stage. “I don’t think UMK would have existed if we went with the selection of songs we got sent for 2018. They just weren’t good enough,” Autio remembers. Autio and his team were so underwhelmed with the songs submitted for UMK that they decided to do away with all of them and internally select stalwart of the show Saara Aalto for Eurovision.
UMK remained, but in an unfamiliar form. Aalto was the only artist in the show, and performed three songs. The winning song was still decided by a 50/50 split of votes from televoters and juries, but the jeopardy was reduced considering Aalto would be the winner no matter what. Monsters – written by Aalto herself, Ki Fitzgerald and Swedish Eurovision winners Joy Deb and Linnea Deb – won the show and became Finland’s 2018 Eurovision entry. At the contest in Lisbon, Aalto reached the Grand Final – already a victory considering Finland’s recent record – but only placed second last.
Yle continued with the same internal selection process for 2019, and surprised almost everyone when Darude from Sandstorm fame was announced as the country’s artist. Autio was “expecting Darude to write another Sandstorm”, but it wasn’t to be. Sandstorm 2.0 didn’t materialise, and the underwhelming song Look Away – written by Darude and the song’s vocalist Sebastian Rejman – was chosen for Eurovision. It was so underwhelming, in fact, that it was ranked last in the Semi-Final.
Those two years were a learning experience for Yle’s UMK team. If they hadn’t gone with internal selections, they wouldn’t have had the chance to work with the American choreographer and creative director Brian Friedman, and wouldn’t have been able to collaborate with Aalto and Darude, both of whom are internationally acclaimed musicians. Autio admits that for both Aalto and Darude it was “difficult to put out three quality songs” in the limited time they had from being asked to participate, to the start of the television production schedule. The whole thing was rushed. “It was necessary to try something completely different,” Piirainen says about Yle’s decision to change UMK, but he’s “happy it isn’t like that anymore”.
For 2020, UMK morphed into the same format still used today. Six (seven from 2021) carefully and expertly selected songs and artists are chosen by a panel led by radio station YleX’s Head of Music, Tapio Hakanen. The lucky artists have the attention of a nation for a whole month from when they’re announced to the public to when UMK airs on television. Yle produces big budget music videos at no expense to the artists, creates engaging social media content promoting the artists for well over 150,000 cross-platform followers, and produces a two-hour long television show which reaches 2 million people. “UMK is a megaphone for the artists and we always try to elevate the artists that we cast,” Myllyaho says.
2020 was a “what if?” year for Finland. In Aksel and Looking Back, it had a package ready for Eurovision, but the pandemic put paid to the hope. “We had an amazing show planned for Aksel, and he gave us an amazing song too,” Finland’s Head of Delegation, Annastiina Paavola, says.
“They were ready and full of drive. They had a vision, and they were willing to work.”
Elias Koskimies
UMK’s new format yielded its first Eurovision result in 2021 when violent pop band Blind Channel scored Finland’s first top 10 since 2014. The band put in an unparalleled amount of effort into making Dark Side and their performance of it as good as they could be. “They were ready and full of drive. They had a vision, and they were willing to work,” Koskimies remembers. He’s not wrong. Blind Channel’s record label shipped the song off to America to be produced to a higher level, and the band’s two vocalists, Joel Hokka and Niko Moilanen, took extra singing lessons and meticulously rehearsed for their stage show.
After Blind Channel’s unmatched Eurovision preparations, the bar was set. The UMK team didn’t necessarily expect every act to reach the same level of commitment as Blind Channel, but the minimum expectation was to reach the left-hand side of the Eurovision scoreboard. In 2022, global megastars The Rasmus entered UMK for the first time. “I asked The Rasmus to compete in UMK about 10 times. 2021 was the first year I didn’t ask,” Autio recalls. The band were going through a rebirth at the time after recruiting a new guitarist, so UMK worked as a perfect platform. Their starpower saw them win the show, but it wasn’t an easy ride.
“Logistically it was difficult because they all live in different parts of the world,” Myllyaho says. Frontman Lauri Ylönen lives in Hawaii and bassist Eero Heinonen lives in Australia. This meant the band didn’t get nearly as much rehearsal time as other acts, and Myllyaho actually had to step in for Heinonen in the music video for Jezebel. “It was a surprise to The Rasmus just how much work is involved in Eurovision,” Autio concedes. The stage show for Jezebel was ambitious, and executed excellently. Before Eurovision, The Rasmus frontman Lauri Ylönen described it as a “live music video” and the show was a credit to Finland’s Creative Director Benke Rydman, Koskimies and Myllyaho who were all involved in its creation. The show was epic, but the result wasn’t; 21st in the Grand Final. Despite the result, in Finland it is considered a positive that The Rasmus went to Eurovision. “They broke the illusion that big bands shouldn’t go to Eurovision,” Piirainen says.
“What the hell is this?!”, “I was instantly hooked”, “This is weird but doable”, “I knew the song was special”, “I would be lying if I knew instantly it would become a huge global hit”. Those are the honest reflections of Autio, Koskimies, Paavola, Piirainen and Myllyaho respectively of the first time they heard Cha Cha Cha. Käärijä entered UMK as a totally unknown quantity, and was not the headline artist when Yle held a press conference to present the seven artists to the media and the public on January 11, 2023. “He was left alone. Nobody wanted to talk to him,” Autio remembers. When Cha Cha Cha was released to the world six days later, there was an immediate reaction and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of Käärijä. Finland rocketed in the Eurovision odds, and Käärijä’s popularity grew day by day. He absolutely dominated UMK, achieving more than 50% of the votes dished out by the public and won the ticket to Eurovision.
2023 was the first year in the modern, UMK-assisted Eurovision era that the Finnish delegation went to the contest with a realistic chance of winning, and with the belief it could win. Even just days after Käärijä won UMK, Paavola told her colleagues they needed to start thinking about what to do if Finland won the whole contest in May. Not only in the Finland camp was there the genuine belief that Käärijä could win, but in the Swedish camp too. Autio remembers seeing Christer Björkman in the delegation area of the Liverpool Arena afraid that Sweden could lose to Finland at Eurovision. Ultimately, Käärijä and Finland were denied the Eurovision crown by Sweden, but finishing as the runner-up was an enormous payoff for years of hard work and trial and error.
Finland’s recent trajectory at the Eurovision Song Contest has been spellbinding, even if the results in the early UMK era were less than inspiring. “It has been like running a startup; there are always highs and lows,” Koskimies says. Viewing figures have risen astonishingly over the last decade: in 2015 UMK reached 1.3 million viewers, dropping to a lowest ebb of just 437,000 during the pits of the internal selection era, before hitting a peak of 2 million this year. Yle research showed more than 60% of the UMK audience in 2023 knew the competing songs before the show.
All the numbers are glowing for Yle, but the only number left to attain is the number one spot in the Eurovision Grand Final. After all, as Paavola says: “The Finns are waiting for a Eurovision win.”
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