The Finnish broadcaster YLE has opened the search for the next Finnish Eurovision representative. The search was opened today at 7.00 CET and it will be open until August 25th 22.59 CET. You can send your song to UMK25 here:
https://ats.talentadore.com/apply/new-music-competition-umk25/Z0GOnk
The finalists of UMK25 are decided by a professional jury, which is led by Tapio Hakanen, the head of music of the radio channel YleX. This is what Hakanen said YLE about UMK:
Last season, UMK became an arena-level event, selling out Nokia Arena twice, and the entire production moved to a whole new level. It was great to see how the UMK artists were also able to advance in their careers towards bigger stages, nationwide popularity, and gold and platinum records.
Hakanen also emphasizes that UMK attracts European audiences widely and it is expected also this year that applications in UMK will come from many different countries and genres:
I am eagerly looking forward to seeing what kind of musical experience we will have for the upcoming season. UMK doesn’t follow a specific musical format, so we hope to attract a diverse group of artists to inspire audiences not only in Finland but around the world!
During the recent years UMK has become the biggest music contest in Finland, and many of the competing songs have become big hit songs. The success of UMK has also mirrored to Finland’s success in Eurovision: Since 2021 Finland has qualified for the Grand Final every year and has finished Top 10 twice, in 2021 with Blind Channel’s ”Dark Side” and in 2023 with Käärijä’s ”Cha Cha Cha”.
You can read the rules of UMK25 here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eNtkSCPRXY0-WbiHsh71jv3nKEqpycGB/view
As we can remember, UMK24 was won by Windows95Man and Henri Piispanen, who carried the Finnish flag in Malmö, finishing 19th in the Grand Final:
