The Swedish national selection, Melodifestivalen, is back, and has just broadcast its third heat live from Kristianstad Arena in Kristianstad. As usual, two artists qualified directly to the final, with a third one going to the “Final qualification” round.
Medina first to the final, Saga Ludvigsson follow with the groups voting
The first entry to qualify was Medina with “Viva l’Amor”, for receiving the most votes overall in the evening.
The second entry to go “direkt till final” was chosen through the “age groups” point systems which has been in use in Melodifestivalen for a few years, with seven age groups and an eighth televote/paying vote group (the “Radiohjälpen” group) each giving points on a 12-10-8-5-3 scale to the five remaining songs.
The age group votes came from the free-to-use Melodifestivalen app (with five votes per user), while the eigth group consisted of both traditional televoters (voting through a charity line) and bonus votes from randomly selected app users over the age of 16, costing 10 SEK (equivalent to the televote cost).
After the full voting, Saga Ludvigsson came first of the remaining five and got the ticket to the Stockholm final, with 90 points (out of a possible 96), where they will perform “Ain’t Today”.
Eva Jumatate to the Final Qualifiers
The third qualifier was chosen in an online-only vote. This time, the raw number of votes were used again and shown in full, instead of the points system, and Eva Jumatate got through to the Final Qualifiers round with her song “Selfish”, which will be held after Heat Five at the end of February, to select the last two entries to go through to the Final.
Who was your favourite tonight? How do you feel about the new voting systems and presentations? Tell us more in the comments below!
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