Two weeks ago we asked our readers to select their favourite among this year’s 26 different national selections. Not many of you will be surprised that Melodifestivalen—the high-octane, high-glam contest in Sweden—has won in a landslide.
The festivalen of crotch grabbin’ and flashing lights had y’all glued to tv screens as you watched Floridian Swede Ace Wilder narrowly miss out on a chance to sing in Copenhagen. A total of 428 of our readers voted for Sweden’s national selection. That’s more than one in five of all those who cast votes.
Spain’s recently resurrected Mira quién va a Eurovisión came second with 182 votes. The battle between Brequette and Ruth Lorenzo gave us plenty of drama and plenty of spice. We enjoyed all that flavour. We hope Spain realizes they’re on to a good thing and keeps the party going next year.
Greece’s MAD selection came third. Part of the appeal had to be the gorgeous men of Freaky Fortune, and the enchanting eyes of runner-up Kostas Martakis.
Brequette won the jury and Ruth won the public vote, and that tie added to the suspense. Unfortunately a similar scenario did not seem to add any appeal to the Belarusian selection. It finished 26th in our poll with just seven votes. Years of alleged vote rigging and insecure producers who like to change songs at the last minute have left viewers rolling their eyes.
National broadcasters can learn a lot from our poll. They need to organize their contest like Sweden, throw in some Greek madness, stir in a bit of controversy from Spain and —BOOM! You may be our winners next year.
Poll results:
[polldaddy poll=”7983084″]You can vote in all of our Eurovision polls by clicking here.
Photo: SVT
Hi guys Melodifestivalen is the BEST TV talent show in the world. In fact, I love it so much that I have actually called Eirevision (my creation for RTE) the Irish Melodifestivalen. I personally, REALLY dislike The X Factor and the Voice. So instead of watching The X Factor with Dermot O’Leary, Matt Richardson and Caroline Flack on a Saturday night in November, I watch Melodifestivalen with Anders Jansson, Bjorn Gustafsson and Nour El Refai with Sean Banan singing out of tune on YouTube. Even though I do not understand Swedish (I actually want to learn Swedish after my Junior… Read more »
There not Armenia in the list? Why?
Hi Darren,
It’s not just the number of wins that a country has in my opinion. It is how consistent a country is. As you know, Ireland started missing the mark since 2004. However with Sweden, they have achieved a top 5 placing or higher in 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2014. I also agree that if any country overtakes Ireland that it most likely will be Sweden. But the UK or even The Netherlands could be the 1st to overtake Ireland because they are now finally heading the right direction.
@Deven
At the minute…Ireland is the most successful, yes it may be in the past but the record still stands. Unless another country manages to surpass Ireland.
But, at the minute, the only country that I think is capable of overtaking Ireland is Sweden, they already have 5 wins, but it wont happen for at least 3 years, ad thats only if Sweden wins 3 years in a row, it could be alot longer than that.
To me Ireland is NOT the most successful couentry in Eurovision. SWEDEN is the most successful country in the Eurovision Song Contest. 😀
I wish every country had their own Melodifestivalen. As big as it is in Sweden. Such pre ESC event is just beyond positive, it brings joy and unites the people.
Swedes are the best.
@Dhani
Azerbaijan had the most beautiful arena too, are we going to name them the “best host ever” because of it? Not takin’ into account that people lost their homes for the sole purpose of it being built? Nah, that doesn’t matter .. because it’s just what we see in the almighty TV that counts.
You can’t base a whole ESC production by simply measuring the size of a stage. Please take following aspects into account as well; infrastructrure, budget, interval acts, hosts etcetera.
I wish my swiss selection could be bigger and better
Ireland being 4th? That show was really bad for me :/
Of course Melodifestivalen is the best! They are the only show that is on the same production level as the actual Eurovision. It is the alternative to the actual contest, because the production itself is of such high standard (compared to the small television studios of the other NFs).
Hi guys, IRELAND SHOULD NOT BE 4TH!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Late Late Eurosong is a bad national final. If RTE were not so negligent towards the Eurovision, we would have the National Song Contest or my Eirevision contest and we would NOT just hire any cheap songwriters with poor track records (Jonas Gladnikoff) and hope for the best. People like Brendan Graham, Sharon Vaughn, Fredrik Kempe , Lise Cabble and Peter Bostrom are the type of songwriters that we need to help us win. To me, this is why Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Norway are doing so well and Ireland is not… Read more »
A Dal and Melodifestivalen were definitely my top two. I also enjoyed UMK, Eesti Laul, and Söngvakeppnin (even though Greta got snubbed).
LIthuania’s national competition this year was really bad I’m sorry
Eurosong Ireland was on ly 4th because of the arguement between Louis Walsh, Linda Martin and Billy McGuinness, The show itself was actually quite boring…and the songs where really below par. Kasey is a beautiful girl and such a nice person, but her song was only chosen because it was the best of a bad lot.
I love Melodifestivalen for the quality of the majority of the acts I’m convinced a lot of them would’ve done very good at ESC, unfortunately only one can win… Also in my opinion it has the perfect length; you get your weekly dosis of excitement across 6 weeks, building to the climax of the final and by then you had your time to listen to the entries, fall in love with them and decide for your favourites, all this without being as long as the lithuanian marathon. As for Spain, I really liked the approach they followed and I’m glad… Read more »
Too many people vote Melodifestivalen in such polls by default. I love it, but like many thought the presentation was very poor this year and there are too many songs not up to scratch, just for the sake of diversity. Sweden should also abandon use of the projection cloth staging they’ve become very fond of the past two years, including at Malmo 2013. It may be cheaper, but it really looks it too !
helena would have slated that stage i can imagine yes
can you imagine how many more points sweden would have scored if they would have sent Helena Paparizou in stead of Sanna. And how much Survivor would have suited the show! That would really have been excellent.
yes sweden is definitely the best at holding national selections.
But they are the worst at producing eurovision shows. In 2013 i almost felt like like they wanted to ruin the show, by making everything smaller and more boring. For example, if you compare the stage from 2013 with 2014, the 2014 stage wins by a landslide, compared to the really boring stage in 2013! I really hope there will be long time before sweden wins again!
yes sweden is definitely the best at holding national selections.
But they are the worst at producing eurovision shows. In 2013 i almost felt like like they wanted to ruin the show, by making everything smaller and more boring. For example, if you compare the stage from 2013 with 2014, the 2014 stage wins by a landslide! I really hope there will be long time before sweden wins again!
eurosong ireland was 4th for all the wrong reasons.