On September 13 we reported on rumours that SVT had some major changes in store for Melodifestivalen 2015. Well today #melfest mastermind and executive producer Christer Björkman finally confirmed them and dropped a few new surprises about Andra Chansen and the final.
First, Björkman confirmed that the number of songs competing in each heat will drop from eight to seven, bringing down the total number of entries from 32 to 28. “This is a way to create more air in the program, a way to open up to create more live feeling and to give each song and artist more space,” he said.
Second, as always, the third and fourth place finishers from each heat will advance to the second-chance “Andra Chansen” round. But their road to the final just got a little bit easier. This year Andra Chansen will feature one round of duels, rather than two. So win your duel, and go direct to the final. Yes, that means four acts will advance to the final rather than just two!
That leads to the third change: 12 acts will compete in the final instead of just 10. This is the first time since 1997 that a dozen acts contested the #melfest finale.
Finally, SVT will take a queue from the Eurovision Song Contest and allow viewers to vote up to 20 times from one phone number. They can vote for as many songs as they would like.
What do you think about the rule changes? Will a bigger final make for a better final?
Well, yes, it increases the likelihood that a song you’ll like will be in the final, just numerically speaking.
I don’t see what the point of this is, though, given that the total number of songs has gone down. Maybe to make the contest more suspenseful?
Many swedish songwriters not submit songs to MF this year
that’s why I guess the rules changes
Many swedish songwriters not submit songs to MF this year
that’s why ai guess the rules changes
Great changes…
I’m disappointed MF will have fewer songs this year. Even though I don’t love every single MF song I always respect them all. Fewer songs means less songs to enjoy. Makes no sense to say “songs will get time to breathe”–they still will only get 3 minutes on stage.
Will a bigger final make for a better final? Well my answer to this comes with another question to every single fans who seems desperate and in agony every time a country withdraws from the Eurovision competition … does having so many countries, makes it better? And by better I do mean .. in terms of music? The same thing applies to MF … ten or twelve songs in the final … it means nothing unless the songs are worth listening to. We should be more critical about the songs we listen to, not to the numbers of songs on… Read more »