Melodifestivalen 1998 was the selection for the 38th song to represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest. It was the 37th time that this system of picking a song had been used. 1,141 songs were submitted to Sveriges Television (SVT) for the competition, with ten songs selected to compete. Five of the songs were eliminated and the remaining five were voted on by 11 regional juries. The final was held in the Malmö Musikteater in Malmö on 14 March 1998, presented by Pernilla Månsson and Magnus Karlsson, and was broadcast on SVT2 and Sveriges Radio's P4 network. The show was watched by 2,881,000 people and the winner was "Kärleken är", sung by Jill Johnson and composed by Bobby Ljunggren, Håkan Almqvist and Ingela Forsman.
First Round – 14 March 1998
Draw
Artist
Song
Songwriter(s)
Result
1
Annika Fehling
"När en stjärna faller"
Annika Fehling
Eliminated
2
B.I.G.
"Ingen annan väg"
Peo Thyrén, Richard Evenlind, Erika Evenlind, Stefan Almqvist
Ahead of the contest, Sweden were considered one of the favourites among bookmakers to win the contest, featuring alongside the entries from United Kingdom, Belgium, Malta, and the Netherlands.[1] Johnson sang in the 19th position on the night of the contest, and at the close of voting she finished 10th out of 25 countries, receiving 53 points.[2] The Swedish televoting awarded its 12 points to Norway.
