The Finnish national broadcaster, YLE, reveals that 485 songs have been submitted for the Eurovision national final “UMK 2025”. The list of contestants will be announced on January 8.
The Finnish national broadcaster, YLE, has unveiled new details regarding the Finnish Eurovision national final, “UMK 2025”. Yesterday, the national broadcaster announced that the selection will take place on February 8, 2025, at the Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland’s third-largest city located in the south. Today, they revealed that a record-breaking 485 songs have been submitted for the Eurovision selection. This marks an increase of 66 songs from last year and sets a new record since the selection began its current format in 2020.
Steady Increase in Song Submissions Over the Years
The Finnish national broadcaster has recorded a consistent rise in the number of songs submitted to the competition in recent years:
- 2025 – 485 songs
- 2024 – 419 songs
- 2023 – 363 songs
- 2022 – 312 songs
- 2021 – 278 songs
- 2020 – 426 songs
Key Dates and Selection Process
YLE also provided details regarding the announcement of participating artists and the release of songs. The participating artists will be announced on January 8, and the seven songs will be released consecutively between January 9 and 17. The head of the selection jury, Tapio Hakanen, revealed that the song selection process will also change, incorporating five judges representing Finnish public taste, in addition to the familiar committee of professional judges.
Excitement Builds for UMK 2025 in Tampere
The main producer of the Eurovision selection, Anssi Autio, expressed excitement about the new details, stating:
The UMK show, which has grown into an arena-scale event, exceeded expectations in many respects last year. There are high expectations for this year’s event, both among the UMK production team and certainly among the audience. Tampere proved to be a brilliant UMK host city last year. This year, we will be working even more closely with the city, which is expected to have a very boisterous UMK week in early February.”
Indeed, the Finnish selection has gained significant popularity among Eurovision fans across Europe in recent years. After a string of failures in the previous decade, the current decade seems to be shaping up as very successful for Finland. This year, they qualified for the final for the fourth consecutive time – an achievement not seen since the late 2000s. Last year, they achieved one of their best results ever in the competition when singer Käärijä reached second place in the final held in Liverpool. Additionally, Finland recorded a notable achievement by reaching sixth place in 2021.
Finland in Eurovision 2024
“No Rules” is the name of the song performed by Windows95man, which was chosen to represent Finland after winning the Finnish national final. Finland advanced to the final after placing seventh in the first semi-final with 59 points, and in the grand final, they reached 19th place with 38 points. This is the fourth consecutive time Finland has qualified for the final, matching their qualification streak between 2006-2009.
Eurovision 2025: This will be Finland’s 58th participation in the Eurovision Song Contest. Finland joined the competition in 1961 and achieved its best result in Eurovision 2006, winning the contest with Lordi and their song “Hard Rock Hallelujah”.
