A second song from the 28 announced by SVT last week to compete at Melodifestivalen 2007 has been withdrawn. The song Alla kan bli stjärnor by Michael Claus, Thomas Törnholm, Sebastian Fronda will be replaced after the performer decided not to take part in the event. SVT also confirm that they have not spoken to Victoria Silvstedt and that she will NOT be a wildcard entry at MF07.

UPD SVT have also confirmed that Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson will not be hosting Melodifestivalen 2007.

Singer Sebastian Fronda, onepart of the team that wrote the song Alla kan bli stjärnor (Everyone can be a star) has decided to decline the opportunity to perform at Melodifestivalen 2007. Christer Bjorkman explained to esctoday.com that "because he is so tied to the song, the singer cannot be replaced and therefore the song has been withdrawn as an entry in the competition".

Whilst discussing the withdrawal of the entry, we asked Mr. Bjorkman if he could confirm claims made on our partner site, Oikotimes, that Victoria Silvstedt had been announced as the first Wildcard entry. We were told: "No, it is certainly not true. We haven't started looking at wildcards at all. We have two songs to replace first. She is an interesting personality and has some star qualities, but we have not spoken to her". The only place this has so far been seen was in a post on a Eurovision Song Contest related forum.

We also asked, in response to fan's petitions, whether Agnes Carlsson would be able to find a way back into the competition, perhaps as a wildcard, or whether her chance for 2007 was gone. Mr. Bjorkman replied: "That's a very good question. We have to look at the two replacements first from the songs already submitted. Then we will look at that we need to make the competition complete. Although at the moment, we have 16 women and only 9 men, and of course After Dark".

We asked if After Dark's inclusion meant that there would be no place in Melodifestivalen for Norweigan act, Queentastic. Mr. Bjorkman said: "Unfortunately no, there won't be a place this time".

We also asked to confirm reports that we reported earlier today made by Expressen newspaper that one wildcard would be from the rock bands Europe or Hammerfall. We were told: "Europe has been discussed before, but it's a matter of timing. It's a bit premature to talk about this now".

UPDATE 15:55, 17/10/2006

SVT have confirmed following an article in Aftonbladet today, that Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson will not be the co-hosts of Melodifestivalen 2007. The report in the paper suggested that they were confirmed as the hosts for the six shows next year, but SVT have officially denied this, saying that "it is still not decided who will host Melodifestivalen next year". Hammar and Wikinsson, who are a popular entertainment/comedy act in Sweden,have recently signed a contract with rival channel, Kanal 5, so would not be allowed to present the series of shows to select the Swedish entry for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.