Sweden: Melodifestivalen 2015 changes

During the last couple of weeks, there were a lot of speculations around Melodifestivalen’s changes. Christer Björkman said in an interview that he wanted to add more shows to Melodifestivalen. Some other posts were talking about reducing the shows etc. No more speculations. SVT announced today the official rules and format of Melodifestivalen 2015.

In order to make the changes more clear to you, we will break them down and make a list.

2015 format & rules

• 28 competing songs instead of 32
• 7 songs compete in every semi-final instead of 8
• 4 songs advance to the final from the Second Chance round instead of 2
• 12 songs compete in the final instead of 10
• max 20 votes per song and voting round (there was no limit before)

So these are the most important changes in Melodifestivalen 2015.

Regarding the reduction of the competing songs, Christer Björkman said: “It is a way to create more “air” in the program, a way to open up and create more live feeling and to give each song and artist more space.”

Interesting is also the fact that we will have 12 songs instead of 10 in the final. The question is, will the final last more than 2 hours or they will reduce the duration of the interval acts? Christer Björkman’s only comment regarding the final was: “The viewers will have two extra favorite songs to vote for. We hope they appreciate that.”

 

What do you think about these changes? Better this way? Worse?

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