He’s the Swedish Eurovision winner who has plenty of experience hosting local television productions. Now Måns Zelmerlöw is taking the big leap to the United Kingdom. The BBC has secured the Eurovision 2016 host as the co-host of the UK’s national final, Eurovision: You Decide.
Måns will be joined by regular You Decide host, comedian Mel Giedroyc. This won’t be the first British-Swedish Eurovision-related hosting. Eurovision 1998 was co-hosted by Sir Terry Wogan and Swedish-born television host Ulrika Jonsson. And the pair will be presenting from an iconic new location.
Next year’s show will take place in Brighton, where the BBC hosted Eurovision 1974 and ABBA claimed victory for Sweden with “Waterloo”. The venue, the Brighton Dome, received a prestigious blue plaque in honour of its lasting impact on popular music in the UK.
The grand final is set to air live on February 7th, slightly later than last year’s edition, but the BBC has revealed few other details about the selection show.
From #Melodifestivalen to #MelGiedroyc actual @manszelmerlow will be co-hosting #Eurovision You Decide! Brighton Dome, 7th February 2018. ?? pic.twitter.com/7JkWEF40Ac
— BBC Eurovision (@bbceurovision) November 16, 2017
The BBC revealed the news via the official BBC Eurovision Twitter accounts. They uploaded a short clip in which Måns described his co-host Giedroyc as “beautiful” and “magnificent”.
Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, has revealed that Edward Af Sillén — the scriptwriter of Eurovision 2016 and many Melodifestivalens — will write the script and direct the show too.
Speaking to the BBC, Måns shared his excitement for his new role. “I’m really, really looking forward to hosting Eurovision: You Decide together with Mel this year,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll have a great show and I would love to see the UK achieve a great result in Eurovision 2018. I can’t wait to be part of the You Decide journey and make both You Decide as well as the Eurovision Finals, a part of every UK home.”
Mel was just as excited, saying, “My favourite time of year has come round again! I can’t wait to hear the songs and meet the artists. And what a thrill to host proceedings with THE hero of my time – the Måns Zelmerlöw all live from the Brighton Dome. It will be a night to remember!”
Måns told Aftonbladet that he believes his role is to make the UK take Eurovision seriously again, “It’s up to me to get the British to understand Eurovision’s greatness as we do in Sweden.” He also revealed having heard some of the songs in the running to be selected that he thinks he’s heard “an ESC winner”.
The BBC has confirmed that six acts will perform in the grand final of Eurovision: You Decide. The competing entries will be revealed to the public sometime in January. Song submissions closed late last month on October 27th and the selection process is well underway.
The usual panel of experts will be present to critique the songs and offer advice on how the performance would work at Eurovision.
Are you excited for Eurovision: You Decide? Do you think Måns will make a good host? What acts would you like to appear? Let us know in the comments below!
People have sort of forgotten this MZ will have a female co-host. Myself included…. It helps I think. Usually I like male / female host combinations
I agree Charles. A big country like UK should indeed be able to find better presenters than Zemmerløv. Had it been Melodifestivalen – a different matter of course! And Edward af Sillien. Well, I find his jokes too stereotypical. Aside from that, he might be OK. But this is just a rumour – thankfully 🙂
The Swedification of ESC does the contest no good. When different copuntries use Swedish song writers / producers etc. The aim is to promote the music typical for the participating countries. Not trying to sound “all MF” 🙂
I have to say I’m tired of watching him on the news all the time… But his victory was a great opportunity to be well known outside of Sweden and I give him credit!
How can he actually help UK pick a good entry? We’ll see.
I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like the tickets for this event have already disappeared. I assume the Brighton Dome is a lot smaller than the Hammersmith Apollo was?
Being the wrong side of London to go to Brighton, I was not as keen to get tickets this time anyhow. 🙁
Mans is a legend, he did a superb job hosting Eurovision, is charm personified and is a huge improvement on the that other chap that usually hosts the show with Mel. Very happy with their choice.
Good thing for the British they should have a good show with these hosts. I’m confident about their act at ESC because it seems BBC is recaring since Lucie’s good place.
A better venue, new co-host and an acclaimed scriptwriter? BBC is really working hard to revitalise the You Decide format. I hope it all pays well next year!
I feel like BBC wants to turn You Decide into highly entertaining local song contest. If successful, it will become a great platform that can attract a lot of high profile and experienced artists(singers and songwriters alike) much like UMK and Melodifestivalen. With the help of the Swedes, I think its possible!
Swedes here swedes there. I love Swevision 2018 (-:
I don’t think there’ll be that much Swedish involvement with the entries being entered for consideration in the national selection as some may fear. If anything, a mix of foreign and locally-written songs as well as collaborations (like with “Never Give Up on You”) is probably the best way to go.
That way, local UK talent will have to step up in coming up with better songs that are more than Eurovision-worthy.
In my view some people will like him co-hosting, some people wont, but I think the UK Need some help with having a wide range of variety, with songs, either if their rock songs, ballads, pop songs, or etc. and being that Mans song which he won, whether you liked it or not, had a message to it, was catchy, memorable, and he sung it well, and the visuals were great, and that’s how he won, and people voted. so regardless of him being from Sweden, people thinking the UK Have giving up and just let swedes right all their… Read more »
OT: I had so much to say about this topic. Then I mixed it up and it went away early somehow. Needless to say it idn’t got published.
Gonna come back one day though, about how I love the swedish guy – and how I dislike people who forms an opinion without knowing facts.
Never liked Mans… so full of himself… and that awful song… Has BBC lost it for good?
It doesn’t say which BBC station is airing it, but I’m assuming it’s 2 or 3 so it doesn’t compete with other programming. As long as he answered quickly, I have a feeling Mans really did listen to some great entries–seeing him struggle to say any of the Icelandic acts can win was a highlight of the 2017 NF season. Like Robyn said, if/when the expectations are raised significantly with this upcoming You Decide, the UK will get a lot more credible entries (because to be honest, it was a 2-3 horse race the past two years). I still hold… Read more »
BBC Two is showing it.
As it should. This past year had a reasonably good show on BBC2, so there’s no reason for them not to have a better one.
I’m just hoping somewhere in the budget there’s better lighting and/or LED panels, since the staging was very low budget-BGT.
Angus, I feel I must point out that the late Terry Wogan was Irish.
He later became a dual Irish/British citizen, but not until the 2000s, after he hosted the contest. He emigrated to the UK at age 25. Ulrika moved to England when she was 12, so if she’s still Swedish, he’s still Irish.
#SorryForTheNitpick
well I honestly thought he would be helping the UK to choose a song, but realising how well he hosted in 2016, he definitely might do a great job, and I for one would watch him, if he was a regular or helping the UK to pick, know the next thing for the UK would be getting professional writers, and judges like Loreen, Emmellie De Forest, Polina, Il Volo or anyone who has professional experience in guiding the Uk to pick a perfect song and writers, because even though the UK have great song writers, a little European help from… Read more »
well, I don’t want to be mean, but I kinda lost interest…
Can he just go away? Like, forever?
Let’s just hope the British selection’s new minimum age doesn’t get raised to 18. If they do that, then heaven forbid, I’ll be as angry as hell! 🙁
Olivia Garcia was sixteen when she competed last year so there are some great younger singers out there!
?? you again with the age thing, pretty sure younger performers will be further from their age robyn -_-
Im not sure who is more desperate , the UK or Mans …. So u wonna tell me that non of the UK stars wonna even help a lil bit their home country?
I completely agree Robin, the standards in both song and show quality needs improving dramatically but with the likes of Greta Salomé and Mans being apart of the UK selection process it can only be a good thing take a look at this past ESC with Emmelie de Forest and Lucie Jones with “Never Give Up On You” prior to the revamp it was meh at best but post revamp with staging it become one of the highlights of the year and also became the most robbed so having Former ESC Winners/Participants being apart of the NS is only a… Read more »
hahahahahha pathetic. wtf UK
What about your music Mans?
Polina is getting a lot of awards with her newest songs and Il Volo have concerts all around the world.
Mans already released his latest album earlier this year, apart from the multiple stuff he’s been multitasking on for both music and TV, including preparations for his upcoming wedding.
He released an album this year. Has a single out right now. Will go on tour. Acts in Jordskott. Worked on Mix Megapol, most listened radio station in Sweden. Pretty just year.
He’s working hard towards a multi-media career atm. Earlier this year he had some movie projects and right now he’s gigging in Sweden.
He also has a TV show in Sweden (currently filming in the UK).
I hope Mans wasn’t just being polite when he said he’s heard a potential winner – if we can be competitive in Lisbon it’ll do Eurovision in the UK a world of good.
By the sounds of it, he was on the jury to decide to the shortlist so it’s possible he might not just be being polite.
Very happy, although I think Edward should be writing the Melfest scripts instead of ours, he’s legendary!
Does BBC realise it’s not 2015 anymore?
Bit weird it’s on a Wednesday night. Nice that they’ve taken it out of London as well (although inconvenient for me!!).
Not really sure why they’ve used Mans. It feels like he’s had his day…
He is based in the UK a lot of the time now, and also performed on the show last year. The national final in the UK isn’t a huge deal, so it’s nice they market it towards fans, getting someone like him in as oppose to just another presenter (no offence to Mel, she’s great)
Not only based, he actually lives in UK. He is engaged to a British actress