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Melodifestivalen 2008

Melodifestivalen 2008
Dates
Semi-final 9 February 2008
16 February 2008
23 February 2008
1 March 2008
Second chance 8 March 2008
Final 15 March 2008
Venue , , Sweden
Interval act Melodifestivalen musical
Participants
Number of entries 32: 8 in each semi-final; 10 in the final (2 from each semi-final, 2 from the Second Chance round.)
Vote
Voting system 50% Jury, 50% SMS and telephone voting
11 juries give 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 points to their seven favourite songs.
People can vote by televote or SMS. Televoting gives 11, 22, 44, 66, 88, 110 and 132 points to the seven most popular songs.
Winning song "Hero" by Charlotte Perrelli

Melodifestivalen 2008 was the 47th Melodifestivalen, and the selection process for the 48th song to represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest. A new rule—Lex Agnes—went into effect in 2008 calling for each submitted entry to include a document containing all information relevant to the song. It was named after Agnes Carlsson, who was disqualified from the 2007 competition for publicly revealing details of her song before the deadline.

Melodifestivalen 2008 included 32 songs split up into four semi-finals with eight participants in each. The semi-finals were held between 9 February and 1 March 2008 and at each, the two top placing songs went to the final, while the third and fourth place songs went to the Andra Chansen (Second Chance Round). At the Andra Chansen, held on 8 March 2008, the eight songs paired off in two rounds with the two winners at the end of the night qualifying for the final. The final was held on 15 March 2008 and included the eight songs from the semi-finals along with the two from the Andra Chansen to make ten songs in all. The winner and selected entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest was then chosen by (insert voting process here).

It was hosted by Kristian Luuk, who also hosted the 2007 event. Luuk was assisted by Björn Gustafsson and Nour El-Refai.

The deadline for the submission of songs was 25 September 2007, and 3,434 songs were submitted, a new record. The titles and composers of the 28 semifinalists (excluding the wildcards) were announced on 10 and 11 December 2007. The wildcards were announced in January 2008.

The semifinals for Melodifestivalen 2008 began on 9 February 2008. There were five semifinals in Gothenburg, Västerås, Linköping, Karlskrona and Kiruna (Andra Chansen) leading up to the final at the Globen on 15 March 2008. Nearly four million votes were cast in total, raising over 5.7 million kronor (605,000) for charity.

In the four semi-finals, the top two songs of the eight competing went directly through to the final. The third and fourth-placed songs went to the Andra Chansen round. Two rounds of televoting selected the qualifiers, the first round selectiong the top five songs with the second round choosing the two finalists and two songs to go to the Andra Chansen round.


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