Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2023

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2023 was the twelfth edition of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the music competition that selects Finland's entries for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition consisted of a final on 25 February 2023, held at Logomo in Turku and hosted by Samu Haber.[3] The show was broadcast on Yle TV1 with a second audio program providing commentary in Finnish by Mikko Silvennoinen, in Swedish by Eva Frantz and Johan Lindroos, in English by Jani Kareinen, in Russian by Levan Tvaltvadze, in Ukrainian by Galyna Sergeyeva, in Finnish Sign Language by Miguel Peltomaa, in Northern Sami by Linda Tammela and in Inari Sami by Heli Huovinen. The competition was also broadcast online at Yle Areena and via radio on YleX, Yle Radio Suomi and with commentary in Swedish on Yle X3M.[4] The competition was watched by 2.1 million viewers in Finland, making it the most watched edition of UMK since its establishment in 2012.[5]

A submission period was opened by Yle which lasted between 1 September 2022 and 5 September 2022. At least one of the writers and the lead singer(s) had to hold Finnish citizenship or live in Finland permanently in order for the entry to qualify to compete.[6][7] A panel of nine experts appointed by Yle selected seven entries for the competition from the 363 received submissions. The experts were Tapio Hakanen (Head of Music at YleX), Aija Puurtinen (vocal coach), Amie Borgar (Head of Music at Yle X3M), Anssi Autio (UMK producer), Johan Lindroos (Head of Music at Yle Radio Suomi), Jussi Mäntysaari (Head of Music at Nelonen Media), Juha-Matti Valtonen (television director), Katri Norrlin (music journalist at YleX) and Samuli Väänänen (Senior Editor at Spotify Finland).[4] The competing entries were presented on 11 January 2023, while their lyric videos were released between 12 and 20 January 2023.[8]

The final took place on 25 February 2023 where seven entries competed. "Cha Cha Cha" performed by Käärijä was selected as the winner by a combination of public votes (75%) and seven international jury groups from Australia, Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom (25%).[9] The viewers had a total of 882 points to award, while the juries had a total of 294 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points. The viewer vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved through the following voting methods: telephone, SMS and app voting. For example, if a song gains 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 882 points rounded to the nearest integer: 88 points.[10] A total of 231,968 votes were cast during the show: 93,324 votes through telephone and SMS and 138,644 votes through the Yle app.[5]

In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the show was opened by Bess performing "Lähtee käsistä" and "Ram pam pam", while the interval acts featured 2022 Finnish Eurovision entrants The Rasmus performing their song "Live and Never Die" and Samu Haber performing his song "Syödään sieniä".[11][12]

Detailed international jury votes

Draw	Song								Total
1	"Girls Like You"	2		2	8	2	2	12	28
2	"Ylivoimainen"	10	6	6	4	4	6	8	44
3	"Cha Cha Cha"	6	12	12	10	10	12	10	72
4	"No Business on the Dancefloor"	12	4	4	6	6	4	6	42
5	"Hoida mut"		2		12	12	8		34
6	"Something to Lose"	4	10	10		8	10	4	46
7	"Samaa taivasta katsotaan"	8	8	8	2			2	28
International jury spokespersons
– William Lee Adams – Mark Forster – Angy Fernández – Cornelia Jakobs – Kamil Staszczyszyn – Jude York – Timur Miroshnychenko