It has been staged under various formats almost every year since Sweden first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1958. The first year, no TV or radio broadcasted event was held, but in 1959, the first public competition was held. The competition is the most popular television programme in Sweden, a title it has held since 2000, at times eclipsing even Eurovision itself. In 2007, an estimated four million Swedes—almost 44% of the country's population—watched the final, while the semifinals averaged around 3.1 million viewers.
The winner is chosen by a number of regional juries and a national televote. Until 2001 the competition was normally limited to between eight and twelve songs (in 1981, only five songs), but since the introduction of semifinals in 2002 that number has risen to thirty-two.
The Melodifestival has produced five Eurovision-winning songs and fifteen placings in the top five for Sweden at the Contest. The event is often seen as being dominated by light orchestrated pop songs, known locally as Schlager. music—so much so that it is sometimes referred to as "Schlagerfestivalen" (the "Schlager Festival") or "Schlager-SM" ("Swedish schlager championship") by the Swedish media but other styles of music such as rap, reggae and glam rock have made an appearance since the competition's expansion.
The competition makes a significant impact on music charts in Sweden; twenty-three participants reached the domestic singles chart in 2006 and twenty-one in 2007. There would have been more people taking part, but Agnes Carlsson was disqualified because she discussed her song in an interview with the Aftonblad newspaper.
Format
Created in 1958, Melodifestivalen has been the competition which all but one of the Swedish Eurovision entries had to go through. There are typically four "heats" of around seven entries each. From each heat, the two most voted-for entries go through to the final while the 3rd and 4th placed entries from each heat go to the "Second Chance Round". From this round, four more finalists are chosen.
In 2022, the second-chance round was replaced with a semi-final where the eight winners of the heats were taken down to four finalists. In 2024, the semi-final will be scrapped and a new fifth heat will be added.
Winners
There have been fifty-six winners of Melodifestivalen.
