A couple of weeks ago, Sweden started its search for entries to take part in its very popular national selection, Melodifestivalen.
In Düsseldorf, Eric Saade's Popular came third in the final and on the back of that success, SVT have decided to continue with a very similar format to 2011, albeit with a few small changes.
The most notable addition to this year's show is that Swedish Head of Delegation and Eurovision Song Contest veteran, Christer Björkman has been made Executive Producer of the entire show.
"It is very humbling to be entrusted with producing the entire competition", said Björkman in a statement on SVT's website, "now we invite all professional producers and song writers with never before released material, to produce songs for the competition".
SVT's Head of Entertainment, Mathias Engstrand, endorsed Christer Björkman's appointment saying, "after producing 320 songs, and working for 10 years as a producer of the competition, it feels completely natural to appoint Christer as Executive Producer for the show.
Some other small changes have been made since 2011, which are:
This year, only one song and not two will be chosen via the Webbjoker competition, where unknown song writers upload their songs to the internet and are selected through an online competition. This year only sound files will be accepted as opposed to only video files in 2011.
Song writers and producers that have previous released records must send their songs in to the ordinary competition. To compensate for there only being one Webbjoker entry this year, 16 and not 15 songs will be chosen by a professional jury to compete in Melodifestivalen.
Similarly to last year, SVT will specially invite 15 song writers and producers to take part in the competition.
All entries must be submitted online between the 1st and 30th of September 2011.
More details of the 2012 Melodifestivalen will be released right here at Eurovision.tv in due course.
