Tonight, the first semi final of the Norwegian selection for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest – MGP 2009 – was held. Seven acts presented one song each and two were chosen by televoting to move forward to the national final. The third and fourth placed songs will enter the second chance round.

The following songs made it to the national final:

• Velvet – Tricky (Hanne Sørvaag, N2, Niklas Bergwall, Niclas Kings)
• Thomas Brøndbo – Det vart en storm (Thomas Brøndbo)

The following songs will enter the second chance round:

• Espen Hana – Two ofa kind (Trond Andreassen/Trond Andreassen, Christian Bloom)
• Surferosa – U look good (Surferosa, Lars-Erik Westby/Mariann Thomassen)

The following songs are eliminated from the competition:

• Chicas del Coro – Men, men, men (Hilde Marstrander)
• Ke Sera – Party (Robin Nordahl, Thomas Ewel/Ke Sera)
• Charite – Sweeter than a kiss (Christian Ingebrigtsen, Laila Samuelsen)

esctoday.com poll results

The televoters partly agreed with the esctoday.com poll voters: Velvet easily won the poll with 38.0% and qualified directly for the final. The two 'last chance' entrants both did well in the poll as Surferosa finished second (25.3%) and Espen Hana 4th (8.9%). However, the second final qualifier only finished 6th in the poll with 5.1%. Charite finished third in the poll but outside the top four in the televote. However, with three out of four possible matches in the top four, poll and televote widely agree.

Maria Haukaas Storeng easily won the 2008 Melodi Grand Prix final getting almost 80,000 votes more than runner-up Torstein Sødal. With the song Hold on be strong, she finished 5th in the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade giving Norway its best placing since 2003. The song was a #1 hit in Norway and also entered the charts in Sweden and Denmark.

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