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BBC announces host city shortlist for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest

In total, 20 nations applied across all four nations of the UK. The applicants were asked to demonstrate how they would reflect Ukrainian culture to mark their win in 2022.

The seven cities were chosen based on criteria that determined which had the capacity, capability and experience to host an event of this scale and complexity.

The second and final stage of the selection process will see the cities asked to elaborate on their bids, and the Host City will be decided by the BBC in partnership with EBU (the Ukrainian Broadcasting Union) in autumn 2022.

Meet the celebrities taking part in Strictly Come Dancing 2022

Credit: BBC

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the show and judges Craig Revel Horwood, Shirley Ballas, Motsi Mabuse and Anton du Beke will be seeing if the celebrities know their Quickstep from their Charleston. 

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman will return as hosts and four new professional dancers will join the series taking the total to 20, the show's biggest dancer line-up ever. 

Here are the first celebrities ready to put on their dancing shoes.

BBC announces cast of Beyond Paradise

Credit: BBC

Beyond Paradise will follow the lives of Humphrey (Kris Marshall) and Martha (Sally Bretton) as they begin a new life together in charming, rural southwest England. 

Eager to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, Humphrey takes on the job of Detective Inspector in Martha’s childhood hometown. 

However, the couple soon discover that country life isn’t so quiet, with the town’s surprisingly high crime rate leading to Humphrey tackling a new and challenging case each week. 

UK to host Eurovision 2023 with "Ukraine at its heart"

After extensive consultation with the Ukrainian broadcaster, UA: PBC, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) decided that it wouldn’t be possible for next year’s event to take place in Ukraine.

As the UK came second in 2022 with Sam Ryder and his track Space Man, the EBU invited the BBC to host the 67th edition of the competition.

BBC acquires international series Senorita 89 and KaDeWe – Our Time is Now

Senorita 89 (Credit: BBC)

Senorita 89 comes from showrunner Lucia Puenzo and explores the dangerous underworld of Latin America’s beauty pageant culture in the 1980s. 

Behind the smiles, beauty and bright lights, there is a dark and disturbing world of manipulation and abuse. 

The eight-part series follows promising beauty queens from all over Mexico who are taken to an ominous ranch in the middle of the forest, where they must stay for three months to be in with a chance to be crowned the next Miss Mexico. 

First look images of Olivia Colman in Steven Knight's Great Expectations released

Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham and Fionn Whitehead as Pip (Credit: BBC)

The first look images for the BBC six-part limited series sees Olivia Colman as Miss Havisham with Fionn Whitehead as Pip and Shalom Brune-Franklin as Estella. 

Steven Knight will write and executive produce the series, which will also be executive produced by Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott. 

Great Expectations tells the coming of age story and education of an orphan named Pip who dreams of becoming a gentleman. 

Mo Gilligan to host new BBC series That’s My Jam

Credit: BBC

The eight-part series is based on the original US show, hosted by Jimmy Fallon, which takes inspiration from the much loved music segments on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

The classic games from the US show include Launch The Mic, Air Guitar, Don’t Drop The Beat and Slay It Don’t Spray It. 

The show will feature celebrity guests, fun musical performances and plenty of dance and trivia games.

With well known songs promised to be taken to a new level, there will plenty of surprises and singalong opportunities. 

BBC commissions new documentary Unvaccinated

Hannah Fry (Credit: BBC)

Covid-19 cases are rising again, putting more people at risk of serious health problems and even death. However, there are still five million adults in the UK who have not received a single vaccine dose. 

The virus has led to multiple lockdowns, more than 197,000 deaths and is now entering its fifth wave. 

Mathematician Hannah Fry was part of the team that worked on the data that helped the UK out of its first lockdown and wants to move past the headlines and find out what the nation really thinks and feels. 

Brian Cox explores the possibility of life on Mars

Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars (credit: BBC)

In 1980, the 12-year-old Brian Cox wrote to Nasa asking for photographs of its space missions, including shots from the mid-1970s Viking programme to land a spacecraft on Mars.  

Speaking from Seattle at an online RTS London event in June, the physicist and TV presenter recalled: “I was so excited when this package came back.” 

He continued: “It’s one of the most wonderful things that Nasa does. It doesn’t only… attempt to answer some of the biggest questions that we can ask, in this case, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’… but also, it engages with the next generation.”  

BBC announces new comedy thriller Black Ops

Hammed Animashaun, Gbemisola Ikumelo and Akemnji Ndifornyen (Credit: Gary Moyes/BBC Studios)

The six-part series is set in East London and follows a pair of Community Support Officers desperate to clean up the community, but unwittingly end up in the dangerous world of deep cover infiltration. 

Dom (Gbemisola Ikumelo) and Kay (Hammed Animashaun) are eager to help and make a difference so join the Met Police force, but find themselves out of their depth and in a fiasco more dangerous than either could anticipate.

Dom is feisty and always ready to stand up for himself and Kay comes across as naïve but proves herself to be more than capable.