Hot on the heels of Blue's disappointing showing in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest , the UK entertainment industry has been hit by more bad news.
Following the band's 11th place finish and taking into account the lowly positions of UK entries over the last 10 years, the UK has been relegated to the second tier of qualifiers for next year's competition.
That means the UK will experience the ignominy of having to go through a preliminary qualifying round featuring the likes of Jersey, Sark, Majorca, Sicily, Jutland and Andorra.
Having to face such minnows is bound to bring about a rethink of the UK's Eurovision strategy and will surely lead to a major restructure of the whole process.
Education Minister Michael Gove has already called for an emergency debate in the House of Commons to discuss introducing a new subject in secondary schools - "Europop" - specifically aimed at students becoming skilled in writing, producing and singing catchy tunes for the Eurovision market.
Gove is also to instruct a delegation of music moguls to visit this year's Eurovision winner Azerbaijan to learn their secrets of success.
