Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest

Sweden
Member station	Sveriges Television (SVT) Former members 1958: Sveriges Radiotjänst 1959–79: Sveriges Radio
National selection events	Melodifestivalen 1959–1963 1965–1969 1971–1975 1977–present Internal selection 1958
Participation summary
Appearances	57 (56 finals)
First appearance	1958
Best result	1st: 1974, 1984, 1991, 1999, 2012, 2015
Worst result	Last: 1963, 1977 Nul points: 1963
External links
SVT Official Homepage
Sweden's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017

Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 57 times since making its debut in 1958, missing only three contests since then (1964, 1970 and 1976). Sweden is one of the most successful competing nations at the Eurovision, with a total of six victories in the contest, only behind Ireland who have seven wins. Sweden is also the contest's most successful country of the 21st century, with two wins from ten top five results. In total, Sweden has achieved 24 top five results in the contest. Since 1959, the Swedish entry has been chosen through an annual televised competition, known since 1967 as Melodifestivalen. At the 1997 contest, Sweden was one of the first five countries to adopt televoting.

Richard Herrey of Herreys (1984), Carola Häggkvist (1991), Måns Zelmerlöw (2015), Loreen (2012) and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA (1974)

Sweden's first entrant in the contest was Alice Babs in 1958, who was placed fourth. This remained the country's best result until 1966, when Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson were second. Sweden's first Eurovision victory was in 1974 with the song "Waterloo", performed by ABBA. Thanks to their victory in Brighton, ABBA went on to gain worldwide success and become one of the best-selling pop groups of all time. In the 1980s, Sweden achieved three successive top three results. After Carola finished third in 1983, the Herreys gave Sweden its second victory in 1984 with "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley". Kikki Danielsson then finished third in 1985. Carola returned to the contest in 1991, to give the Swedes their third win with "Fångad av en stormvind", defeating France in a tie-break. Charlotte Nilsson gave the country a second win of the decade in 1999, with "Take Me to Your Heaven". The 1990s also saw two third-place results, for Jan Johansen in 1995 and One More Time in 1996. In the 2000s, the best Swedish result was fifth place, which they achieved four times, with Friends in 2001, Fame in 2003, Lena Philipsson in 2004 and Carola, who in 2006, became the only Swedish performer to achieve three top five results.

In 2010, Anna Bergendahl became the first Swedish entrant to fail to make it to the final, finishing 11th in the semifinal, only five points from qualification (in 2008, Charlotte Perrelli finished 12th in the semifinal but qualified through the back-up jury selection). Since then, the country has been very successful, finishing in the top five in six of the last seven contests, including victories for Loreen, who gave Sweden its fifth victory in 2012 with the song "Euphoria", making Sweden one of only two countries (along with the United Kingdom) to have Eurovision victories in four different decades, and winning for the sixth time with Måns Zelmerlöw's "Heroes" in 2015. Sweden is one of only two countries - along with Ukraine in 2004 and 2016 with Ruslana and Jamala respectively - to win twice since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, performing the feat in both 2012 and 2015 with 372 and 365 points respectively, making Sweden additionally the first country to have scored 300 points or more twice. They also finished third in 2011 with Eric Saade and "Popular", third in 2014 with Sanna Nielsen and "Undo", fifth with Frans and the song "If I Were Sorry" in 2016, and fifth with Robin Bengtsson and "I Can't Go On" in 2017.

Sweden has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest six times and is the only country to have hosted the event in five different decades, three times in Stockholm (1975, 2000, and 2016), twice in Malmö (1992 and 2013) and once in Gothenburg (1985). Together with Croatia and Malta it was the only country to never be relegated, under the previous rules of the contest, that wasn't a part of the Big Four.

Melodifestivalen

Melodifestivalen is an annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television (SVT) and Sveriges Radio (SR). It has chosen the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest since 1959. It is Sweden's most popular television shows, and it has been estimated that more than 4 million Swedes watch the show annually.

Almost every Swedish entry for Eurovision has been selected through Melodifestivalen. Only Sweden's first entry in 1958, was not selected through Melodifestivalen, having been selected internally by the Swedish broadcaster at the time, Swedish Radio Service.

Contestants

Table key

NOTES:

a. ^ In 2008, Sweden qualified through the back-up jury selection.

b. If a country had won the previous year, they did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. In addition from 2004-2007, the top ten countries who were not members of the big four did not have to compete in the semi-finals the following year. If, for example, Germany and France placed inside the top ten, the countries who placed 11th and 12th were advanced to the following year's grand final along with the rest of the top ten countries.

Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest

In 2005 to celebrate 50 years of the Eurovision Song Contest, Denmark hosted a special one-off contest on behalf of the EBU to find Europe's favourite Eurovision song of the first 50 years. Tipped as the favourite from the start, ABBA won the contest by a landslide with "Waterloo" coming first in the semi-final with a record 331 points and then going on to win the contest with 329 points in the final. Alongside other Eurovision stars, Carola Häggkvist and Elisabeth Andreassen helped introduce and present small parts of the show.

Table key

Voting history

As of 2017, Sweden's voting history is as follows:

Most points given in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Ireland 223 2  Norway 200 3  Denmark 195 4  United Kingdom 168 5  Germany 144 Most points received in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Norway 330 2  Denmark 316 3  Finland 256 4  United Kingdom 207 5  Iceland 193

Most points given in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Denmark 264 2  Ireland 240 3  Norway 236 4  Finland 185 5  Iceland 182 Most points received in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Norway 376 2  Denmark 374 3  Finland 295 4  Iceland 261 5  United Kingdom 247

Hostings

Marcel Bezençon Awards

Artistic Award

Voted by previous winners

Voted by commentators

Composer Award

Winners by OGAE members

Commentators and spokespersons

Over the years SVT commentary has been provided by several experienced radio and television presenters, including Jacob Dahlin, Ulf Elfving, Harald Treutiger, Pekka Heino, Kristian Luuk and Fredrik Belfrage. From 2009 to 2017 (except 2013 and 2016), Edward af Sillén provided the SVT commentary alongside various dual commentators.

Photogallery

• 
  Alice Babs at Hilversum (1958)
• 
  Ingvar Wixell at Naples (1965)
• 
  Carola Häggkvist at Athens (2006)
• 
  The Ark at Helsinki (2007)
• 
  Charlotte Perrelli at Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Malena Ernman at Moscow (2009)
• 
  Anna Bergendahl at Oslo (2010)
• 
  Eric Saade at Düsseldorf (2011)
• 
  Loreen at Baku (2012)
• 
  Robin Stjernberg at Malmö (2013)
• 
  Sanna Nielsen at Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Måns Zelmerlöw at Vienna (2015)
• 
  Frans at Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Robin Bengtsson at Kiev (2017)

Other

No restriction on the nationality of the songwriter and the artist exists in the Eurovision Song contest, which has resulted in countries being represented by songwriters and artist who are not nationals of that country. In recent years Swedish songwriters have been involved in the writing entirely or partly of entries from several countries except Sweden - for instance, in the 2010 the songs from Belarus, Denmark, Georgia, Norway, Ireland and Azerbaijan were written entirely or partly by Swedes; in the 2011 the songs from Russia and Azerbaijan; in the 2012 the songs from Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, Greece, Cyprus, Norway, Azerbaijan and Spain; and in the 2013 the songs from Georgia, Finland, Norway, Russia, Netherlands and Azerbaijan, ; in the 2014 the songs from Azerbaijan, Ireland, Denmark, Russia, United Kingdom and Ukraine; in the 2015 the songs from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Macedonia, Netherlands, Spain and Russia; In the 2016 the songs from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Georgia, Lithuania, Norway, Malta, Moldova and Russia.

See also

• Melodifestivalen
• Sweden in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest – Junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Sweden in the Eurovision Dance Contest – Dance version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Sweden in the Eurovision Young Dancers – A competition organised by the EBU for younger dancers aged between 16 and 21.
• Sweden in the Eurovision Young Musicians – A competition organised by the EBU for musicians aged 18 years and younger.
• Sweden in the Turkvision Song Contest – A contest for countries and regions which are of Turkic-speaking or Turkic ethnicity.

References

External links

• SVT's site for Melodifestivalen
• Swedish Radio's site for Melodifestivalen
• Gylleneskor.se
• ESC Sweden
• OGAE Sweden, the Swedish branch of the ESC fan club
• Schlager Party, a London series of schlager events
• Schlager Radio
• Points to and from Sweden eurovisioncovers.co.uk