Olly Alexander to Represent the UK at Eurovision 2024

With 2023 drawing to a close, plans for Eurovision 2024 are already underway. The 68th edition of the long-running musical contest will be held in Malmö after Sweden took home the win for the seventh time. The competition only confirmed this year's theme (it will remain "United By Music") in November and the number of participating countries at the end of last week, on December 14. There are 37 currently planned to participate, with a 38th (Romania) still in talks. However, the U.K. was quick off the mark, announcing 48 hours later that the artist selected to represent them in 2024 would be Olly Alexander.

As noted last year during our more extensive coverage when Eurovision was being held in the U.K., participant countries choose their artists in a variety of different ways, from hand-selected juries of musical peers and producers where the public has no say in anything that happens, to open call national contests where public voting determines everything, to something in between the two. The countries that follow the former model announce their artists early on since the process is much quicker, whereas the national contests run for months on TV and usually produce their artists last.

Each has its advantages. Those chosen early on have more time to rehearse, but they're also not the public's choice. National contests tend to produce fan-favorite darlings; however, those darlings are close to running on fumes by the time Eurovision happens since they have to perform week after week after week to get there.