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
Appearances
Appearances	56 (55 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 2016

Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 56 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 nine top five results. In total, Sweden has achieved 23 top five results in the contest. Since 1959, the Swedish entry has been chosen through an annual televised competition, known since 1967 as Melodifestivalen.

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 qualifying ahead of the Cypriot entry (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 five of the last six 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 2016 with 372 and 365 points respectively, making Sweden additionally the only 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", and fifth with Frans and the song "If I Were Sorry" in 2016.

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.

Sweden was one of the first five countries to adopt televoting in the 1997 contest.

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 2016, Sweden's voting history is as follows:

Most points given in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Ireland 223 2  Norway 194 3  Denmark 190 4  United Kingdom 168 5  Germany 144 Most points received in the grand finals only Rank Country Points 1  Norway 319 2  Denmark 292 3  Finland 238 4  United Kingdom 195 5  Iceland 177

Most points given in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Denmark 259 2  Ireland 240 3  Norway 230 4  Iceland 173 5  Finland 170 Most points received in the semis and finals Rank Country Points 1  Norway 365 2  Denmark 350 3  Finland 258 4  United Kingdom 232 5  Iceland 227

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. However, since the 2009 Contest, Edward af Sillén has provided the SVT commentary alongside Shirley Clamp, Christine Meltzer Lind, Hélène Benno and Gina Dirawi.

Photogallery

• 

  Alice Babs at Hilversum (1958)

• 

  Ingvar Wixell at Naples (1965)

• 

  The Ark at Helsinki (2007)

• 

  Charlotte Perrelli at Belgrade (2008)

• 

  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)

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, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Georgia, Lithuania, Norway, Malta, Moldova and Russia

See also

• Melodifestivalen
• Sweden in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest
• Sweden in the Eurovision Dance Contest

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

Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest
Participation 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Artists 1950s 1956 to 1957 Alice Babs Brita Borg 1960s Siw Malmkvist Lill-Babs Inger Berggren Monica Zetterlund 1964 Ingvar Wixell Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson Östen Warnerbring Claes-Göran Hederström Tommy Körberg 1970s 1970 Family Four Family Four The Nova ABBA Lars Berghagen and The Dolls 1976 Forbes Björn Skifs Ted Gärdestad 1980s Tomas Ledin Björn Skifs Chips Carola Herreys Kikki Danielsson Monica Törnell & Lasse Holm Lotta Engberg Tommy Körberg Tommy Nilsson 1990s Edin-Ådahl Carola Christer Björkman Arvingarna Marie Bergman and Roger Pontare Jan Johansen One More Time Blond Jill Johnson Charlotte Nilsson 2000s Roger Pontare Friends Afro-dite Fame Lena Philipsson Martin Stenmarck Carola The Ark Charlotte Perrelli Malena Ernman 2010s Anna Bergendahl Eric Saade Loreen Robin Stjernberg Sanna Nielsen Måns Zelmerlöw Frans
Songs 1950s 1956 to 1957 "Lilla stjärna" "Augustin" 1960s "Alla andra får varann" "April, April" "Sol och vår" "En gång i Stockholm" 1964 "Absent Friend" "Nygammal vals" "Som en dröm" "Det börjar verka kärlek, banne mig" "Judy, min vän" 1970s 1970 "Vita vidder" "Härliga sommardag" "You're Summer" "Waterloo" "Jennie, Jennie" 1976 "Beatles" "Det blir alltid värre framåt natten" "Satellit" 1980s "Just nu!" "Fångad i en dröm" "Dag efter dag" "Främling" "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" "Bra vibrationer" "E' de' det här du kallar kärlek?" "Boogaloo" "Stad i ljus" "En dag" 1990s "Som en vind" "Fångad av en stormvind" "I morgon är en annan dag" "Eloise" "Stjärnorna" "Se på mej" "Den vilda" "Bara hon älskar mig" "Kärleken är" "Take Me to Your Heaven" 2000s "When Spirits Are Calling My Name" "Listen To Your Heartbeat" "Never Let It Go" "Give Me Your Love" "It Hurts" "Las Vegas" "Invincible" "The Worrying Kind" "Hero" "La voix" 2010s "This Is My Life" "Popular" "Euphoria" "You" "Undo" "Heroes" "If I Were Sorry"
(Note: Entries scored out are when Sweden did not compete)