SVT have announced several major format changes for their Eurovision Song Contest National Selection, Melodifestivalen.
Melodifestivalen has been Sweden’s National Selection for the Eurovision Song Contest since 1967 and has used roughly the same format since Christer Björkman relaunched the programme in 2002, to monumental success. While the have been some format changes since then, it’s always roughly consisted of four heats, a second chance round and the final… until now.
| Show | Songs | Qualifiers |
|---|---|---|
| Heat 1 | 6 | 2 |
| Heat 2 | 6 | 2 |
| Heat 3 | 6 | 2 |
| Heat 4 | 6 | 2 |
| Heat 5 | 6 | 2 plus 2 previous non-qualifiers |
| Final | 12 | 1 Winner to Eurovision Song Contest |
The new format sees five heats (instead of four), each with six songs (instead of 7), each with two qualifiers going to the final and the other four non-qualifying. However, Heat 5 will be an extra half-an-hour long to allowed for two previous non-qualifiers a wildcard to the Final. The Final will continue to have a line-up of 12 songs.
The main headline here is the axing of the Semi Final, known as Andra Chansen until 2021, which has always been the least viewed of the Melodifestivalen shows. The reason why is that in the first few years of the 2002 relaunch, Andra Chansen was pretty much a separate entity, presented from a studio, often by different presenters, playing recaps of the non-qualifiers. It wasn’t seen as a “proper” show and thus a lot less people watched it. Despite being upgraded to a full show, just like the other 5, in 2007, the perception from the Swedish public that “Andra Chansen doesn’t count” remains prevalent to this day. In 2022, SVT tried to counter this by renaming Andra Chansen to Semi Final, in order to make it seem more important, but this didn’t change viewing figures much, and most Swedes still kept calling it Andra Chansen, defeating the purpose. After 15 years, this now seems to be finally some decisive action from SVT addressing the issue, as Heat 5 will more than likely receive the same amount of viewers as Heats 1-4.
We always want to make Melodifestivalen even better and more exciting for our audience. With this completely new approach, we believe we can maintain viewers’ engagement throughout the season. It’s no secret we’ve lost audiences in the semi-finals. Now we hope to keep the excitement up through all the programmes.
Anders Wistbacka, Project Manager for Melodifestivalen
Despite removing one song from each heat, going from 7 per heat to 6 per heat, the extra show has added two new songs, taking the total from 28 to 30 in Melodifestivalen, as a whole.
