A change of rules was announced for MGP 2009, the Norwegian selection for the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest was announced. Instead of six, eight acts will take part in the last chance round 'siste sjansen' on 14th February. From the bottom three entries of the three semi finals, the one with the most televotes and SMS votes will get another chance while the second entry will be chosen by the readers of the website VG Nett.
So far, the top two songs of each semi final qualified directly for the national final on 21st February while the third and fourth placed songs were allowed to enter the second chance round on 14th February. The voting on VG Nett (here) will kick off on Saturday at 21:05 CET, when the third and last semi final will have been held and it will be closed on Monday, 9th February at 10:00 CET. The following songs are eligibile to get a very last chance so far and will be joined by another three tomorrow:
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Chicas del Coro – Men, men, men
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KeSera – Party
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Charite – Sweeter than a kiss
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Tine Wulff – Ride
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Julius Winger – Like an angel
Wenche Myhre, who took part in the second semi final last week, is missing in the list as she has had to withdraw from the competition as she would not be able to compete on 14th February because of a concert in Portugal. The singer told NRK.no: "I am sad that I cannot take part in 'Siste sjansen' but I am still impressed by all the young new talents I saw and I wish them all the best of luck."
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. In 2009, Norway will take part in the second semi final in 14th May.
Special thanks to Kim Karlsen for the contribution to the article.
