Sweden Melodifestivalen 2022: Cornelia Jakobs and Robin Bengtsson to the Final

Nu kör vi!

This years Melodifestivalen has begun! The first deltävling (heat) had two winners directly qualified for the Final: Cornelia Jakobs and Robin Bengtsson and two for the Semi-final: Danne Stråhed and Theoz.

The 2022 edition of Melodivestivalen will be different in terms of shows as the 6 week tour has been scrapped due to COVID-19, just like last year. All six shows are broadcast from Stockholm, with the first three shows taking place at Avicii Arena (former Globen Arena), where Eurovision 2000 and 2016 was held. The last three shows will be aired from Friends Arena.

Voting system collapsed

The whole voting system for Melodifestivalen this year has changed, with app voting playing a major role. But it simply didn't work.

Viewers should be able to vote from the Mello App, and give "hearts" to the songs they liked the most. But after the fourth song, the host Oscar Zia announced that the app was down, and that voting could only happen via the old school telephone.

The Swedish broadcaster SVT had widely promoted the voting changes before this year's Melodifestivalen. To "increase the live feeling", and "offer viewers another dimension in watching TV":

• The viewers will get more free votes in the app
• The finalists will be announced earlier
• The excitement will increase
• The result will be based on telephone votes and on how viewers' votes are distributed between the different age groups in the app

But all these good intentions were set aside as SVT simply had no control over the technicalities. Maybe on paper, but not in a full scale environment.

Anette Brattström, project manager for Melodifestivalen 2022, says:

– No app votes were counted, but all contestants had the same conditions because we only counted telephone votes and the telephone voting has been working during the entire program.

– The voting system has worked and normal amounts of votes came in. However, a function in the app seems to have caused some users to be thrown out and then not be able to enter again. For reasons of justice, it was better to turn off the app voting as we could not ensure that everyone who wanted to vote could.

This is how the new voting system SHOULD have worked:

First round of voting:

Viewers could vote on all seven participants via app/telephone/sms. The song that received most votes qualified directly to the Final of Melodifestivalen.

Second round of voting:

Viewers could vote on the remaining six participants via app/telephone/sms. The votes from the first round were added. All the app votes were divided into seven voting groups determined by age, and in addition an eighth voting group consisting of votes from telephone/SMS. Each of the voting groups's votes were converted to points (12-10-8-5-3-1) for the remaining six artists.

The artist with most points qualified for the Final, while the artists with 2nd and 3rd most points qualified to the Semi-final (previous "second chance") of Melodifestivalen.

Melodifestivalen 2022

• 5 February: Deltävling 1
• 12 February: Deltävling 2
• 19 February: Deltävling 3
• 26 February: Deltävling 4
• 5 March: Semi-final
• 12 March: Final

All the shows will be broadcast from Stockholm and hosted by Oscar Zia.

The format for Melodifestivalen 2022 is almost the same as in previous years meaning that in each of the 4 heats (deltävling), there will be 2 songs that will qualify directly to the final and another 2 songs that will qualify to the Semi-final (previous "Second Chance"). At the Semi-final, the 8 songs will be split in two groups, and the best 2 songs from each group will qualify for the final.

Sweden in Eurovision Song Contest

Since 1958 Sweden has participated 60 times in Eurovision Song Contest with great success. They have won the contest 6 times:

• 1974: ABBA – Waterloo
• 1984: Herreys – Diggi-loo Diggy-ley
• 1991: Carola – Fångad Av En Stormvind
• 1999: Charlotte Nilsson – Take Me To Your Heaven
• 2012: Loreen – Euphoria
• 2015: Måns Zelmerlöw – Heroes

They came last two times (1963 and 1977), and since the introduction of the Semi-finals in 2004 Sweden managed to qualify for the Grand Final 16 out of 17 times! (only failed the qualification in 2010)