Following that jury vote drama in Tel Aviv, Sweden moved from sixth to fifth in the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. And while they are still processing the unexpected and happy nudge up, Sweden is ready to take things even higher at the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in the Netherlands.
On Monday the Swedish broadcaster SVT announced details of its selection process for Melodifestivalen 2020 — its national selection for Eurovision. Songwriters can submit starting on 26 August. The deadline will be on the 13th of September. You can read the full submission rules in English.
In recent years the Swedish broadcaster has received thousands of song submissions. And this year, as in years past, only 28 will make it to the four initial heats, which take place in venues all over Sweden during Saturday primetime.
The 28 entries will consist of 14 contestants selected by the jury from the submitted musical compositions. And 14 contestants specially invited by SVT or other entries that SVT has selected from among the submissions.
According to SVT, Melodifestivalen 2020 is going to be “extraordinary” because it is the 60th edition of the event. Expectations for Sweden are always very high, and that will not change in the coming year.
Victory for the Swedes isn’t just about slaying Eurovision itself. They also have a very progressive domestic aim: to have at least 50% of the selected songs be written by female lyricists and composers or teams that consists of both males and females.
It is already possible to register for a reminder email, which will be sent when the registrations open in August. Please click here.
Melodifestivalen has produced six Eurovision winners and 20 Top 5 placings for Sweden at Eurovision. Two of Sweden’s Eurovision winners came within three years of each other: Loreen in 2012 and Måns Zelmerlöw in 2015. During this golden era, Sanna Nielsen also managed to come third in 2014.
The competition exerts major influence on the Swedish music industry, and it’s no surprise that many Swedish artists and composers are hungry to get their songs in the line-up.
Are you looking forward to Melodifestivalen 2020? Which former Melodifestivalen acts would you like to see return? Sound off in the comments box below!
I agree that my country Sweden needs to change formula! I hope someone gets it this year!
Well, if Sweden ends up competing with similar formula for the fourth time in a row, this is pointless to bring out. But aside of that, seems they’re missing female participation at songwriting and at least they put emphasis on that.
(Plus, I still wonder how songmaking credits are barely to be shown on this year’s ESC lower third since the lightrays just blend in with the credits, except for, you know, the one with different ray of lights (read: Sweden).)
If Sweden is that amazing, 21 points or 93 points wouldn’t happen.
Sweden needs to change their formula. If they can do it with this 50% quota, great. If not, it’s unnecessary. I actually think Sweden was the best Eurovision country from 2011 to 2015. I would’ve been fine with them winning in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015, that’s four times in five years which is quite amazing. After that, they’ve either gotten worse or they just send the same song every single year and I’ve got tired of it. Måns was a great winner, but he was not SOOOOO amazing that Sweden should send a male soloist with a pop song… Read more »
I think i have found the new participant for sweden. I think he will win the nation selection… what do you think?
Valter Nilsson – Friday Night Lights
You can see him on Youtube. He have won the P4 Göteborg Radio Contest and maybe he can get a ticket for the Melodifestivalen.
Love his Voice!!!!!
P4 Nästa 2019 is a cool radio show in sweden. They are looking for someone who can go to melodifestivalen! 1 free place 🙂
My goal would be to select the 28 best songs regardless of whether they were written by men women or Martians.
I would love to see a different side of sweden next year. A ballad or something else besides a pop song.
If you wanna send a pop song again, send something different next year. Not another streamline pop song we’ve heard before.
I dont understand the reason why they think about so stupid rules? I hope that the show will be beautiful with great songs and great artists! I cant wait! 🙂 I have a question. Where can i buy a DVD from the Melodifestivalen 2019? On amazon i cant find! 🙁
maybe ginza.se will have that, they ship within europe
Whatever we in Sweden will do 2020 the fans will complain so i think that we swedes should vote for our favourites and ignore international fans from now on. They have so much hate always and i feel sorry for people that hate all the time. They dont feel good i think.
By the way: This year i votet for our country!
from abroad?
I’d rather live in a system of meritocracy rather than quotas.
By SVT logic, if 50 men send in killer songs, while 20 women send in average or poor songs …then the chances that the poor songs would make it through are high just because of gender.
I don’t personally care who writes a song but once the quotas are introduced it all loses its charm.
In 2019, gender shouldn’t be an issue.
In 2020, gender will still be an issue. Melodifestivalen is a platform to promote singers and songwriters. If there are informal disadvantages for women in the Swedish music industry, the public broadcaster can support them by a quota. Still, among the 50% can be collaborations. So, it’s still kind of a “soft” quota.
It doesn’t matter who wrote the song, in the end, crazy, silly teenage girls will vote for the cutest boy singer. Maybe teenage girls are the problem, not “toxic” men.
I am not a silly girl and i also voted for the hottest men! 🙂 so.. what..? 🙂
So you dont care about the song? haha then youre toxic like the diaspora voters
Yes i hear the song to but in my oppinion i vote for this men who is the hottest. 🙂
really stupid
Well, that would make more sense than the opposite assumption – men in general don’t have owngroup preference, but female owngroup preference is a scientifically proven thing. Hence, whenever men are accused by a woman of favoring other men over women solely based on gender, in some sort of “bro culture” way, I tend to think it’s some sort of projection on the woman’s part.
I think people forget the word aim. It’s written there on print. Meaning that it doesn’t have to be 50 50 but they aim for it. SVT has had this aim since 2011. It’s really not an issue. Unless of course youre a man or commenter on this site.
Amen.
I wish that are not always the same participants in these preliminary decisions. There are certainly so many untapped talents! Why not make an open casting on the street. In a mall or in the city? I would like a rule that someone who has already competed in a preliminary round can take a maximum of a second time. I really can not hear Valentina and Serhat from San Marino anymore. Where are these wonderful talents who have no chance to sing for such a country? Why always the same? I do not eat pizza every day, it gets boring.
If you lived in Sweden you would wee see we have a lot of talent shows. Its just jealous talk to say “the same”. I live here and so if artists want to come back? Its fun and international fans complain on Sweden whatever we do
Probably having 16 out of 28 contestans being returnees on 2019 does become a peeve of its own.
I dont know why the most of the people here prefer Wiktoria. She was to overacted and the song to drmatic with the rain. Horrible! 🙁
So >50% women is allright, but >50% men is not allowed? Hypocrisy at its finest.
Quality should be important. Not gender, orientation, race, nationality, hair color or hight of song writter.
this 50% female quota makes no sense. what if this year more male songwriters come up with better songs? will they be discarded in favor of less good ones? svt more like sjw
The screening process sets a high bar of quality, at least by Melfest standards, to meet so I think there’s nothing to worry much about at the moment.
It’s not an enforced quota, more like a goal.
It’s not equality when you force the situation in which 50% of the songwriters are women and 50% are men. It only means that some songs written by men may be discarded only because of this. How is that fair?
Equality is when you look at quality of the songs as the main factor of pushing them forward in the selection process, not at gender, because it’s then when your gender doesn’t mean anything in a situation where it shoudln’t.
I find it funny that you speak of “some sort of guarantee they can succeed”. Newsflash, no-one gets a guarantee to succeed at Eurovision, neither male or female. Just look at where the affirmative-action programme that is the Big Five-rule has gotten my country (Germany), reliably to the bottom of the scoreboard, and even so with our wonderfully-progressive girl-power anthem that we sent this year. The security that they can’t be eliminated in the semi finals has made the Big Five countries complacent, not putting in enough effort to keep up with the field. And then, they wonder why they… Read more »
Italy has never been complacent.
True, Italy only rejoined the contest less than a decade ago, though 😉 . They’re still “fresh” and motivated. I hope Italy can keep up this good level, despite repeatedly having only come very close to winning and yet never taking the trophy since their return. Spain, in contrast, put in a lot of effort on the conceptual level during recent years, i.e. choice of singer and song, but then they almost always messed up the staging, which took them back down to the lower end of the right-hand side of the table as a result. France ended up in… Read more »
They’ve had this quota before in the prior few years. It doesn’t mean that 50% of the songs will be written by men and 50% by women. In fact, all it means is that 50% of the songs will have one woman songwriter as part of the team. All it aims for is that male songwriters include a woman in their work. And often it ends up being the singer who also gets songwriting credit. Last year nearly 20 songs had a woman songwriter, but only 2 were written entirely by women. And let’s face 25% of them will be… Read more »
…whatev’s. If the current trend goes on, Bishara will be the next Swedish representative with a song that will be pushed up beyond the sky by juries and ignored by televoters.
Okay, random fantasy incoming: What about a duet of Helena Paparizou (participated in Mello 2014; after winning Eurovision in 2005 ofc) and LIAMOO? Would be epic and could win the whole thing 😀
I’d always be on board about Queen Helena coming back.
*Yes I love Helena*
**She won on my second year as a fan, having had Sakis as a fave the year before.**
***I just love mid-2000’s ethno-pop. Leave it there.***
He can’t participate this year
You know this has already been in Melodifestivalen?
I still wish Jon & Aninia had won Melodifestivalen 2017. It would’ve been such a great exception to what Sweden usually sends, and looking at the results of these other “let’s show the Nordic culture” entries (Norway 2019 & Denmark 2018), I think it would’ve done very well too. To be honest, I much prefer En värld full av strider to those two.
I am so hopeful that Mohombi returns to the Show! This year he was amazing! 🙂 🙂 and he is so hot. Thats an argument.
That 50% rule has been in place since 2011, when they introduced the first rule change. That is hardly something new for next year. Why emphasis on it now, guys? It’s the same rule it has been.
And why do people get triggered over having 50% women? That is not even an issue..
I prefer a rule that each gender should be represented by at least 40%.
And Eric Saade came 3rd as well just one year before Loreen’s victory 🙂
Also, nice goal but like, choose the songs by their quality, not the writers’ gender
I agree! Its not important.
This of course coming from the country that’s trying to outlaw men peeing while standing up. shocker.
They’ll just pick Bishara next year if he joins the national final anyway. Bjorkman needs his boys to win it.
Why do they want at least 50% female songwriters? Why not just pick the best songs? It’s certainly not progressive to choose a song based on the gender or colour of who wrote it. Melfest takes submissions from all kinds of people. Surely that’s enough?
I wouldn
t be surprised if the forever pc United Kingdom followed this model. Then we would have even worse UK entries cause they would be chosen solely based on the songwriters gender or ethnic background.Lol no word on motivating songwriters to write less radio friendly generic pop…. They will flop sooner or later with that recipe
I hope they just send something bad and flop. They are a boring country with too much power, and relying on bribed juries and neighbour scandivotes.
Ooh isn’t the 60th anniversary for Norway and Denmark too next year? I can’t wait to see the awesome shows that the Scandinavian countries always provide! I would love to see Mimi Werner and Victor Crone(although he is now focusing on his album)! I’m verry happy with the choice of having more female songwriter… Although Christer Bjorkman said that most of the female artists in sweden don’t want to apply for Melodifestivalen
For Denmark it’s not 60 cause they didn’t participate from 1966-1978. Their current boss at the time didn’t like ESC
There is a reason why female artists don’t want to apply for Melfest. Sweden has sent a total of one female act since 2013. Women simply don’t believe they have chances to win, that’s all. That’s why it would be a nice change if a woman represented Sweden next year.
And the two women that Sweden have sent since 2011 (Loreen and Sanna Nielsen) both placed at least in the Top 3, and both were huge favorites beforehand amongst the fandom. So it wouldn’t kill for Sweden to send a woman again.
Exactly!
WOW, glad they are figuring out the sexism situation after the televote this year, where all the female acts finished in the bottom of the public votes, with the exception of Nano. And I say sexism because no way Lisa Ajax or Wiktoria were better than Avingarna or Bishara for example, some of the acts that they finished below in the televote. And can we please have a year without Laurell Barker, I really hope Sweden won’t make that move because her songs don’t really succeed in Eurovision and Sweden wants amazing results every year. I hope they send a… Read more »
I have to say that also the Guy – i dont know his name – he sang “Hello” could be a good choice. 🙂
https://youtu.be/b0KwXnOxnJA This is the guy
Hanna was Top 3 in televoting tho. She had a good that Swedes like.
Bishara probably would have done better in televote in ESC as well than Lisa or Wiktoria regardless our taste. It is not a Swedish bias thing. (Wiktoria did amazing in 2016 and 2017..)
Avigrana were great and different in my opinion. Very Swedish.
I think people voted for LIAMOO and not Hanna though. The only way I see a woman winning MelFest next year is if she has a great song that’s radio friendly while also being emotive and sophisticated, having the live performance and staging to back it up, and thus relying on the juries to give her a landslide to make up for the inevitable loss in televotes to a young charismatic man.
I’ve watched pretty much all of Melodifestivalen this year, and John Lundvik was pretty much the inevitable choice. Lisa Ajax, Wiktoria, and Liamoo and Hannah, while all vocally skilled, presented songs that gave the overall impression of neurotic millennial teenagers. Showing vulnerability in an authentic way can connect to an audience, but winning them over with positive charms, like John did, usually works better, especially with a crowd that’s usually looking to have a party, like the Eurovision audience. Anna Bergendahl’s song was just a low-energy remake of Only Teardrops. I would have loved to see either Arvingarna or Jon… Read more »
True- it wasn’t really a problem this year given that an objectively excellent song and singer won, but it’s a wider problem for MelFest overall- although it is nice that there was a lot of diversity in the contest this year.
Sweden and Montenegro have been due of a female solo for a long time (2014 last time for Sweden and 2009! for Montenegro). A shake up after all this time, it would a nice thing.
Hello, could everyone tell me where i can find a list with al dates from national selections? 🙂
Only 2 countries confirmed NF dates: Denmark (07.03) and Czech Republic (25.01)
Thanks a lot!! 🙂
Although very unlikely imagine Sweden although not a surprise sending an absolute catchy fun loving bop next year, but completely in Swedish with no English lyrics what so ever. Firstly that will make Sweden stand out even more like Iceland did this year which got them a 10th place, and secondly if staged well and the song being incredible, they could like always be a threat for next year.
Just a suggestion
Well, counting that Swedish is the only language I don’t have a song in. I’d like that
I’m waiting for the day when finally a woman will represent Sweden again
They will be asking lorèen to hop on
There’s a typo. The Netherlands 2020 is gonna be the 65th edition, not the 60th.
It’s the 60th edition of Melodifestivalen
Can we have a year without Laurell Barker please? All she writes is generic and cliché lyrically songs!
Agree. But that is why it’s like she was made for Melodifestivalen.
If sex matters (male or female), then is the danger a low quality song to be picked just because the writer has the right sex. In other countries songs are sent anonymously.
If their songs suck less with 50% females, I’m all for it.
“Suck less”, the majority of the songs in MF would be a worthy edition to a lot of National Selections.
I beg to differ. Melodifestivalen has been mediocre lately.