Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 60 times since making its debut in 1958, missing only three contests since then (1964, 1970 and 1976).
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.
Sweden is the only country to have hosted the event in five different decades, three times in Stockholm (1975, 2000, 2016), twice in Malmö (1992, 2013) and once in Gothenburg (1985).
Sweden is one of the most successful competing participants at the Eurovision Song Contest, with a total of six victories, second only to Ireland’s seven wins, and has the most top five results of the 21st century, with 11.
In total, Sweden has achieved 25 top five results in the contest. After finishing second with Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson in 1966, Sweden went on to achieve its six victories with ABBA (1974), Herreys (1984), Carola (1991), Charlotte Nilsson (1999), Loreen (2012) and Måns Zelmerlöw (2015).
[…] to latch onto a broadcaster who is open and "friendly" believe anything they say. They believe that the Melodifestivalen selection is better than anything offered by other broadcasters. AGAIN! How have they done this? – by not […]
A minor point (a cut and paste error perhaps) there are seven songs in each semi final not eight as stated in your “how it works paragraph”.
The announcement of the Mello contestants is for me the start of the ESC season. Mello has it’s fans and enemies but it’s one of the national finals we’d secretly all like to have.
*dofs cap*
I have amended this forthwith!