The rules of Melodifestivalen change next year with the addition of two more entries participating in the contest, the semi-final is converted to a fifth heat and the duration is extended.
We always want to make Melodifestivalen even better and more exciting for our audience. With this completely new arrangement, we believe we can maintain viewers’ engagement throughout the season. It’s no secret that we’ve lost audiences in the semi-finals. Now we hope to keep the excitement up through all the shows.
Anders Wistbacka, project manager for Melodifestivalen.
The New Format
Six entries compete in each heat, a total of 30 entries (previously, 28). Two entries per heat go directly to the final, two are still in the competition and two are eliminated. There are thus ten entries that directly qualify for the final from the five heats.
The final will continue to have 12 competing entries and the last two finalists will be presented in a completely new show, live from the arena directly after the fifth heat. Viewers will then have the opportunity to distribute even more hearts via the app and phone to their favorites among the ten remaining entries, i.e. those who came third and fourth in the five heats. All of these competing artists are in attendance and viewers get to watch a flash replay of their previous performances. The result is based on a tally of the number of votes in the heats and the number of votes in the extended part of the fifth heat.
The final will be just like the previous years with twelve competing entries where the viewers account for half of the votes via app/sms and half of the votes are cast by an international jury.
Song submissions for Melodifestivalen 2024 are done by uploading the audio file of the entry via www.melodifestivalen.se during the period 25th August at 09.00 – 15th September at 11.59 CET.