Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest

Sweden has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 56 times since making its debut in 1958, missing only three contests since then (1964, 1970 and 1976). Sweden is one of the most successful competing nations at the Eurovision, with a total of six victories in the contest, only behind Ireland who have seven wins. Sweden is also the contest's most successful country of the 21st century, with two wins from nine top five results. In total, Sweden has achieved 23 top five results in the contest. 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.

Contents

• Melodifestivalen
• Contestants
• Congratulations 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest
• Voting history
• Marcel Bezenon Awards
• Commentators and spokespersons
• Other
• References

Sweden's first entrant in the contest was Alice Babs in 1958, who was placed fourth. This remained the country's best result until 1966, when Lill Lindfors and Svante Thuresson were second. Sweden's first Eurovision victory was in 1974 with the song "Waterloo", performed by ABBA. Thanks to their victory in Brighton, ABBA went on to gain worldwide success and become one of the best-selling pop groups of all time. In the 1980s, Sweden achieved three successive top three results. After Carola finished third in 1983, the Herreys gave Sweden its second victory in 1984 with "Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley". Kikki Danielsson then finished third in 1985. Carola returned to the contest in 1991, to give the Swedes their third win with "Fångad av en stormvind", defeating France in a tie-break. Charlotte Nilsson gave the country a second win of the decade in 1999, with "Take Me to Your Heaven". The 1990s also saw two third-place results, for Jan Johansen in 1995 and One More Time in 1996. In the 2000s, the best Swedish result was fifth place, which they achieved four times, with Friends in 2001, Fame in 2003, Lena Philipsson in 2004 and Carola, who in 2006, became the only Swedish performer to achieve three top five results.

In 2010, Anna Bergendahl became the first Swedish entrant to fail to make it to the final, finishing 11th in the semifinal, only five points from qualification (in 2008, Charlotte Perrelli finished 12th in the semifinal but qualified through the back-up jury selection). Since then, the country has been very successful, finishing in the top five in five of the last six contests, including victories for Loreen, who gave Sweden its fifth victory in 2012 with the song "Euphoria", making Sweden one of only two countries (along with the United Kingdom) to have Eurovision victories in four different decades, and winning for the sixth time with Måns Zelmerlöw's "Heroes" in 2015. Sweden is one of only two countries - along with Ukraine in 2004 and 2016 with Ruslana and Jamala respectively - to win twice since the introduction of the semi-finals in 2004, performing the feat in both 2012 and 2016 with 372 and 365 points respectively, making Sweden additionally the only country to have scored 300 points or more twice. They also finished third in 2011 with Eric Saade and "Popular", third in 2014 with Sanna Nielsen and "Undo", and fifth with Frans and the song "If I Were Sorry" in 2016.

Sweden has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest six times and is the only country to have hosted the event in five different decades, three times in Stockholm (1975, 2000, and 2016), twice in Malmö (1992 and 2013) and once in Gothenburg (1985). Together with Croatia and Malta it was the only country to never be relegated, under the previous rules of the contest, that wasn't a part of the Big Four.