Submissions open, rules published for Melodifestivalen 2017

Following the announcement of the first potential act for Melodifestivalen 2017, SVT (Sveriges Television) has today opened the submissions process for the popular national selection contest which will select Sweden’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The process officially opened this morning at 9am CET and songwriters have until 5.59pm CET on September 19th to upload their submissions by visiting the competition’s official website.
SVT have also published the official rules for both the submissions process and the competition itself in both Swedish and English. They explain that submissions are to be entered into either the regular or the public contest depending on whether the songwriter(s) have had work published before. If they have, they go into the regular contest which will make up a significant proportion of the 28 finalists. If not, their submissions are entered into the public contest which has five guaranteed slots in the top 100 shortlist. However, there is no guarantee that any of these songs will make it further than that and into the live shows.
For those who are successful and make it into the final 100 songs will be contacted in either October or November 2016. It has yet to be confirmed when the six live shows that Melodifestivalen comprises of will take place, but it is very likely that the final will take place on either March 11th or March 18th 2017. This is likely to depend on when the EBU set the deadline for Eurovision 2017 entries because the Swedish final traditionally takes place on the final weekend prior to the deadline.

This year, Frans was victorious at Melodifestivalen with If I Were Sorry and scored a very respectable 261 points and 5th place at the Eurovision final in Stockholm. This was yet another success story for Sweden in Eurovision who have an unmatched record of five top 5 finishes in the past six years, including two victories – Loreen in 2012 and Måns Zelmerlöw in 2015.
Sweden now have 6 victories in total, will 2017 be the year they get their 7th to match Ireland’s Eurovision record? Let us know below!