SVT, the Swedish national broadcaster has revealed further details on the forthcoming edition of Melodifestivalen 2024 and the implementation of major changes to the competition.

Crash, boom, bang…. the countdown for the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest has kicked off in Sweden and so have the preparations for the most anticipated Eurovision national selection aka Melodifestivalen!

SVT is set to bring about a series of changes to the competition. A total of 30 entries will be partaking in the competition, six  entries in each semi-finals. Hence there will be 5 semi-finals. Hence two acts from each semi-final will qualify directly to the Grand Final, two acts will remain in the competition whilst the last two will leave the competition.

Thus two acts will be rescued from the remaining 10 acts who didn’t make it to the Grand Final. These two acts will be determined by the Swedish audience during the 5th Semi-final.

Long story short the Melodifestivalen 2024 Grand Final will feature 12 acts battling for the golden right to represent Sweden at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest.

Melodifestivalen 2024 will consist of six live televised shows ( 5 semi-finals and 1 Grand Final). The song submission window for Melodifestivalen 2024 will run from 25 August- 15 September 2023.

The 2024 Swedish Eurovision entry and act aka the 2024 Eurovision winner will be determined via a 50/50 international jury- public voting deliberation.

Anders Wistabacka (Melodifestivalen Project Manager) says:

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 programs.

How will the format  work?

The SVT press release reads:

Six entries compete in each semi-final, i.e. a total of 30 artists during the season. Two entries from each semi-final go directly to the final, two are still in the competition and two have finished competing. There are thus ten entries that directly qualify for the Grand Fnal from the semi-finals.

The Grand Final will continue to have twelve competing entries and the last two finalists will be selected in an extension of the fifth part of the competition. Viewers then have the opportunity to distribute even more hearts via app and phone to their favorites among the ten remaining entries, i.e. those who came third and fourth in the five sub-competitions. 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 sub-competitions and the number of votes in the extension of the fifth semi-final.

The Grand Final looks like the previous one with twelve competing entries where the viewers account for half of the votes via app/phone and half of the votes are cast by an international jury.

Competition registration for Melodifestivalen 2024 is done by uploading the audio file of the competition contribution via www.melodifestivalen.se during the period 25 August at 09.00 – 15 September at 11.59.

Source: SVT
Photo credit: SVT