Melodifestivalen 2008 semifinals
| Eurovision Song Contest 2008 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country |
 Sweden
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| National selection | ||||
| Selection process | Melodifestivalen 2008 | |||
| Selection date(s) |
Semi-finals 9 February 2008 16 February 2008 23 February 2008 1 March 2008 Second Chance 8 March 2008 Final 15 March 2008 |
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| Selected entrant | Charlotte Perrelli | |||
| Selected song | "Hero" | |||
| Finals performance | ||||
| Semi-final result | Qualified (12th, 54 points) | |||
| Final result | 18th, 47 points | |||
| Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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Sweden selected its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 by holding an extending national selection, namely Melodifestivalen 2008. A record of 3 489 entries were submitted to the broadcaster SVT, and 28 were chosen to compete. They were completed with 4 wildcards in the end of December. Melodifestivalen was also this year held on Saturdays, starting with the first of the four semi-finals on 9 February and ending with a final on 15 March. It was the last of the year's national selections, as the official ESC draw was held on 17 March. Four songs progressed from each semi, two to the final and two to the second chance round, where the songs were competing in a knock-out round to gain the last two places in the final.
The final was won by Charlotte Perrelli with the song "Hero", which was written and composed by Fredrik Kempe and Bobby Ljunggren. Sanna Nielsen, who was the favourite of televoters, came second, as she did not receive enough points from the 11 juries.
Charlotte Perrelli competed in the second semi-final on 22 May. She did not actually finished among the ten best, but thanks to the new rule that the last finalist will be chosen by the back-up juries, she took the final ticket at the expense of Macedonia. The actual placement was 12th, 7 points after Macedonia and 2 points after Bulgaria. She was drawn into the 15th spot in the final. Although being one of the heavy favorites before the final, Sweden did not finish higher than 18th, receiving only 47 points.
The commentators for the event for SVT were Kristian Luuk and Josef Sterzenbach, with a brief appearance by Carl Bildt in the final. The spokesperson announcing the votes for Sweden was Björn Gustafsson.
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.
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