“You’re joking! Not ANOTHER ONE?!”
With Christer Björkman off the Mello team, occupied by a certain States-side project, it’s fair to say a few things have been re-jigged for the 2022 season.
Back in October, it was announced that the Andra Chansen format would undergo a name change to “Semifinal”, and, rather than the eight acts competing in four “duels”, they will now compete in two “groups” of four.
Today, Senior Director of Melodifestivalen Anette Brattström told Swedish news outlet Aftonbladet about changes to the voting system that will be used for both the heats and the grand final.
She said to the publication: “When we see how the viewers vote, they are very involved in the first half of the programme. But then we think that all heart voices [app votes] are over, so for the rest of the program you can’t get involved and influence anymore. Therefore, we will now be handing out new heart voices for round two.”
The thinking behind the changes is that, by dividing the voting into two phases, tension will build right to the end of the show, so retention will be greater than in previous editions.
The changes to the voting are as follows:
Heats: Phase One
- Voting on the Melodifestivalen app will be open during the show, as each of the seven acts performs. Viewers can vote for a song on a ratings system between zero and five “hearts”.
- Once all the acts have performed, the voting will be closed and votes counted, after which the act with the most votes will go straight through to the final (or direkt till final, if you will). They will not perform their song again, like in previous years.
Heats: Phase Two
- All the votes from the first phase will be carried over for the other six acts into the second phase.
- App voting starts afresh, and viewers can vote for each act again, with between zero and five “hearts”.
- All the votes, as is usually the case, will be broken down into age categories (3-9, 10-15, 16-29, 30-44, 45-59, 60-74 and 75+), with telephone votes its own separate category, each carrying a Eurovision-style 12 points etc. weight based on ranking.
- Now, here’s the interesting bit: unlike in previous years, the votes will be announced Eurovision-style in each semi-final, with the points from each age category (and telephone voting) added gradually, building tension and immediately publishing how well each act did.
- The highest scorer in the second phase will go direkt till final, while the second and third place will go through to the “Semifinal” (new-look Andra Chansen).
Grand Final
- While the voting will, once again, be split into two phases, the first will come before the international jury votes are revealed, and the second after, so the public will get to influence the vote after the juries have cast theirs. Once again, they will have up to 5 “hearts” to distribute in each phase. The age category split will also be revealed Eurovision-style, as per the heats.
About a week ago, it was announced that the Melodifestivalen tour was unable to go ahead due to Covid restrictions in Sweden.
For the same reason, the semi-finals have also been moved to the Avicii Arena, formerly the Ericcson Globe, in Stockholm, named in honour of late DJ Tim Bergling. Tickets were put on sale yesterday.
The reigning champion of Melodifestivalen is Tusse, with the song Voices, which came 14th at Eurovision in Rotterdam.
Are you excited about Melodifestivalen 2022? Do you think this new voting system will make the show more exciting? Let us know in the comments and on social media!
