United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 ultimately selected six finalists to compete in the national final. The six competing songs were premiered during "The Ken Bruce Show" on BBC Radio 2 on 22 February 2016. Six acts compete in the televised final on 26 February 2016. In addition to their performances, guest performers included previous Eurovision Song Contest winners Måns Zelmerlöw, who won the contest for Sweden in with the song "Heroes", and Katrina Leskanich, who won the contest for the United Kingdom in as the lead vocalist of the band Katrina and the Waves performing the song "Love Shine a Light". The show also featured
Love Shine a Light won the UK general election held two days earlier, on 1 May 1997. In a 2009 interview Leskanich restated her opinion of "Love Shine a Light": "it was such a feel-good, lighters-in-the-air, cheesy number. It would have been embarrassing for it not to win. It had 'I am a winner' written all over it", while adding: "Our song was quickly forgotten because we didn’t have any sensational gimmick like Bucks Fizz" and describing Eurovision as "a joke...People who take it seriously are the kind of people who get into Miss Universe. How can you have a contest about what's the