The British national broadcaster, BBC, broadcasts the event within the United Kingdom and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. BBC announced that the United Kingdom would participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 on 20 December 2011. BBC has traditionally organised a national final featuring a competition among several artists and songs to choose the British entry for Eurovision. For their 2011 entry, BBC announced that they would opt to internally select the British entry due to poor results and decreasing public interest after a record low viewing figures had been achieved for the 2010 contest. This marked the first time that an internal selection would take place to select United Kingdom's entry since their first entry in 1957.