SVT has just announced some major changes in Melodifestivalen 2015, their national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. They are narrowing down the number of songs in the heats, but making a much bigger final!

SVT announced that the heats will consist of seven songs in 2015, instead of eight as it was the case in the past years. This of course means that the entire competition will go down from 32 songs to 28. Christer Bjorkman says that this should create more air in the programme, and give every song and every artist more space.

The next change is in the second chance round – the famous “Andra Chansen”. Third and fourth placed songs from each heat will qualify for this show, and they will be divided into four duels. The change is that the winner of each duel will qualify, without it having to go through another duel!

All of this means that the final will consist of the eight direct qualifiers from the heats (two from each heat), and four qualifiers from “Andra Chansen”, making this a 12 song final, the first time since 1997!

And the last change is in the televoting system. The new rule claims that the viewers can vote up to 20 times from one phone number for one song, but you can vote for as many songs as you want in each show.

What do you think about these changes SVT has introduced?