Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019

Norway participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Norwegian broadcaster Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) organised the national final Melodi Grand Prix 2019 in order to select the Norwegian entry for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Eurovision Song Contest 2019
Country	Norway
National selection
Selection process	Melodi Grand Prix 2019
Selection date(s)	2 March 2019
Selected entrant	KEiiNO
Selected song	"Spirit in the Sky"
Selected songwriter(s)	Tom Hugo Hermansen Fred-René Buljo Alexandra Rotan Henrik Tala Alex Olsson Rüdiger Schramm
Finals performance
Semi-final result	Qualified (7th, 210 points)
Final result	6th, 331 points
Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2018 • 2019 • 2020►

Background

Prior to the 2019 Contest, Norway had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-seven times since their first entry in 1960.[1] Norway had won the contest on three occasions: in 1985 with the song "La det swinge" performed by Bobbysocks!, in 1995 with the song "Nocturne" performed by Secret Garden and in 2009 with the song "Fairytale" performed by Alexander Rybak. Norway also had the two dubious distinctions of having finished last in the Eurovision final more than any other country and for having the most "nul points" (zero points) in the contest, the latter being a record the nation shared together with Austria. The country had finished last eleven times and had failed to score a point during four contests. Following the introduction of semi-finals in 2004, Norway has only failed to qualify on three occasions. In 2018, Norway was represented by Alexander Rybak for the second time, with the song "That's How You Write a Song". The country placed 15th in the final with 144 points.

The Norwegian national broadcaster, Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK), broadcasts the event within Norway and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. The broadcaster has traditionally organised the national final Melodi Grand Prix, which has selected the Norwegian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in all but one of their participations.

Before Eurovision

Melodi Grand Prix 2019

Melodi Grand Prix 2019 was the 57th edition of the Norwegian national final Melodi Grand Prix and selected Norway's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.[2] The show took place on 2 March 2019 at the Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, hosted by Heidi Ruud Ellingsen and Kåre Magnus Bergh.[3][4] The show was televised on NRK1, NRK TV, broadcast via radio with commentary by Ole Christian Øen on NRK P1 as well as streamed online at NRK's official website nrk.no. The national final was watched by 961 thousand viewers in Norway with a market share of 68.6%.

Competing entries

A submission period was opened by NRK between 31 January 2018 and 9 September 2018.[2] Songwriters of any nationality were allowed to submit entries, while performers of the selected songs would be chosen by NRK in consultation with the songwriters. In addition to the public call for submissions, NRK reserved the right to directly invite certain artists and composers to compete. Project leader Stig Karlsen stated that he wanted a participatory field with "celebrities and artists that people know" in the competition, and that NRK would "do an even bigger job to bring forth some new talents as well", making Melodi Grand Prix 2019 "the largest MGP final".[5][6] At the close of the deadline, over 1,000 submissions were received.[7] Ten songs were selected for the competition by various focus groups and the competing acts and songs were revealed on 25 January 2019 during a press conference at NRK's Store Studio, presented by Heidi Ruud Ellingsen and Kåre Magnus Bergh and broadcast via NRK1 and online at mgp.no. Among the competing artists was former Eurovision Song Contest entrant Mørland, who represented Norway in 2015 with Debrah Scarlett. At least two of the artists: Chris Medina and D'Sound were directly invited by NRK to participate in the national final. The competing entries were later premiered after the press conference.[6]

Final

Ten songs competed during the final on 2 March 2019.[4] The winner was selected over three rounds of voting. In the first round, the top four entries were selected by a 50/50 combination of public televoting and ten international juries to proceed to the second round, the Gold Final: "Mr. Unicorn" performed by D'Sound, "Holla" performed by Anna-Lisa Kumoji, "The Bubble" performed by Adrian Jørgensen and "Spirit in the Sky" performed by KEiiNO. The viewers and the juries each had a total of 580 points to award. Each jury group distributed their points as follows: 1–8, 10 and 12 points. The public vote was based on the percentage of votes each song achieved. For example, if a song gained 10% of the viewer vote, then that entry would be awarded 10% of 580 points rounded to the nearest integer: 58 points.[8] In the Gold Final, the top two entries were selected solely by the public televote to proceed to the third round, the Gold Duel: "The Bubble" performed by Adrian Jørgensen and "Spirit in the Sky" performed by KEiiNO. In the Gold Duel, the results of the public televote were aggregated to the results from the Gold Final and led to the victory of "Spirit in the Sky" performed by KEiiNO with 231,937 votes.[8][9]

Final – 2 March 2019
Draw	Artist	Song (English translation)	Composer(s)	Result
1	Chris Medina	"We Try"	Chris Medina, Jason Gill, Tormod Løkling, Julimar Santos	Eliminated
2	D'Sound	"Mr. Unicorn"	Kim Ofstad, Jonny Sjo, Mirjam Omdal, Magnus Martinsen, Tormod Martinsen	Gold Final
3	Mørland	"En livredd mann" (A terrified man)	Kjetil Mørland	Eliminated
4	Anna-Lisa Kumoji	"Holla"	Ashley Hicklin, Jeroen Swinnen, Maria Broberg	Gold Final
5[lower-alpha 1]	Erlend Bratland	"Sing for You"	Erlend Bratland, Arvid Solvang, Nils Egil Brandsæter	Eliminated
6	Ingrid Berg Mehus	"Feel"	Ingrid Berg Mehus, Bjørnar Hopland, Anthony Modebe	Eliminated
7	Hank von Hell	"Fake It"	Hans Erik Husby, Andreas Werling	Eliminated
8	Carina Dahl	"Hold Me Down"	Ashley Hicklin, Jeroen Swinnen, Pele Loriano, Laurell Barker, Laura Groeseneken	Eliminated
9	Adrian Jørgensen	"The Bubble"	Jonas McDonnell, Aleksander Walmann, Kjetil Mørland	Gold Final
10	KEiiNO	"Spirit in the Sky"	Tom Hugo Hermansen, Fred-René Buljo, Alexandra Rotan, Henrik Tala, Alex Olsson, Rüdiger Schramm[lower-alpha 2]	Gold Final

1. Due to technical difficulties in the performance, Erlend Bratland was allowed to perform again after all the performances.
2. Rüdiger Schramm was later added as one of the composers of "Spirit in the Sky".

Detailed International Jury Votes
Draw	Song
1	"We Try"
2	"Mr. Unicorn"		X	X				X	X
3	"En livredd mann"				X
4	"Holla"	X
5	"Sing for You"
6	"Feel"
7	"Fake It"
8	"Hold Me Down"
9	"The Bubble"					X	X			X
10	"Spirit in the Sky"										X
International Jury Spokespersons[10]
– Nicola Caligiore – Sopho Toroshelidze – Antonio Losada Vela – Mads Enggaard – Isabel Roma – Reto Peritz – Aleksandra Jovanovska – Zbyszek Zalinski – Lőrinc Bubnó – Amit Wulff

Gold Final – 2 March 2019
Draw	Artist	Song	Televote	Place	Result
1	D'Sound	"Mr. Unicorn"	11,123	3	Eliminated
2	Anna-Lisa Kumoji	"Holla"	6,718	4	Eliminated
3	Adrian Jørgensen	"The Bubble"	55,794	2	Gold Duel
4	KEiiNO	"Spirit in the Sky"	98,328	1	Gold Duel

Gold Duel – 2 March 2019
Draw	Artist	Song	First Round	Second Round	Total	Place
1	Adrian Jørgensen	"The Bubble"	55,794	106,814	162,608	2
2	KEiiNO	"Spirit in the Sky"	98,328	133,609	231,937	1

At Eurovision

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 28 January 2019, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Norway was placed into the second semi-final, to be held on 16 May 2019, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show.[11]

Once all the competing songs for the 2019 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Norway was set to perform in position 15, following the entry from Albania and preceding the entry from Netherlands.[12]

Semi-final

Norway performed fifteenth in the second semi-final, following the entry from Albania and preceding the entry from Netherlands. At the end of the show, Norway was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final. It was later revealed that Norway placed seventh in the semi-final, receiving a total of 210 points: 170 points from the televoting and 40 points from the juries.

Voting

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member as well as the nation's televoting results were released shortly after the grand final.[13]

Points awarded to Norway

Points awarded to Norway (Semi-final 2)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Albania  Denmark  Netherlands  Sweden	Austria  Croatia  Germany  Ireland   Switzerland  United Kingdom	Italy  Latvia  Lithuania  Malta  Russia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Armenia  Azerbaijan  Romania	Moldova	North Macedonia
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
		Denmark	Ireland	Switzerland
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Sweden	Malta	Austria  Moldova	Germany	Armenia  Lithuania

Points awarded to Norway (final)
Televote
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
Australia  Denmark  Germany  Iceland  Ireland  Netherlands  Sweden  United Kingdom	Czech Republic  Estonia  Finland  Hungary  Israel  Italy  Russia	Austria  Belarus  France  Latvia  Lithuania  Poland   Switzerland	Belgium  Malta  Spain	Portugal  Slovenia
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Albania  Armenia  Croatia  North Macedonia	Romania  Serbia	Moldova  San Marino		Azerbaijan  Cyprus
Jury
12 points	10 points	8 points	7 points	6 points
			Moldova   Switzerland	Ireland
5 points	4 points	3 points	2 points	1 point
Denmark  Germany	Portugal  Sweden			Austria  Poland

Points awarded by Norway

Semi-final 2 Score Televote Jury 12 points  Lithuania  Sweden 10 points  Sweden  Netherlands 8 points  Denmark   Switzerland 7 points   Switzerland  North Macedonia 6 points  Azerbaijan  Azerbaijan 5 points  Netherlands  Denmark 4 points  Russia  Malta 3 points  Malta  Russia 2 points  Albania  Moldova 1 point  North Macedonia  Latvia

Final Score Televote Jury 12 points  Sweden  Czech Republic 10 points  Iceland  North Macedonia 8 points  Netherlands  Sweden 7 points  Italy  Netherlands 6 points   Switzerland   Switzerland 5 points  Denmark  Azerbaijan 4 points  Australia  Denmark 3 points  Azerbaijan  Italy 2 points  Estonia  United Kingdom 1 point  Russia  Cyprus

Split voting results

The following five members comprised the Norwegian jury:[13]

• Knut Bjørnar Asphol – Chairperson – musician, music producer, songwriter
• Finn-Ulrik Berntsen – music producer
• Jenny Jenssen – artist
• Kamilla Wigestrand – artist, songwriter
• Maiken Kroken – musician, singer, vocal coach

Split voting results from Norway (Semi-final 2)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		F. Berntsen	K. Bjørnar Asphol	J. Jenssen	K. Wigestrand	M. Kroken	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Armenia	9	17	7	17	16	14		16
02	Ireland	15	16	17	15	17	17		15
03	Moldova	8	14	8	11	6	9	2	14
04	Switzerland	5	2	3	4	5	3	8	4	7
05	Latvia	11	15	15	3	14	10	1	12
06	Romania	14	11	11	7	9	11		13
07	Denmark	7	10	2	13	2	6	5	3	8
08	Sweden	2	1	5	1	1	1	12	2	10
09	Austria	17	12	12	16	13	16		17
10	Croatia	16	9	9	8	12	12		11
11	Malta	4	8	14	12	7	7	4	8	3
12	Lithuania	10	7	13	14	15	13		1	12
13	Russia	6	6	10	10	11	8	3	7	4
14	Albania	13	13	16	9	10	15		9	2
15	Norway
16	Netherlands	3	3	6	2	3	2	10	6	5
17	North Macedonia	12	4	1	5	4	4	7	10	1
18	Azerbaijan	1	5	4	6	8	5	6	5	6

Split voting results from Norway (final)
Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		F. Berntsen	K. Bjørnar Asphol	J. Jenssen	K. Wigestrand	M. Kroken	Average Rank	Points	Rank	Points
01	Malta	13	7	13	13	7	11		12
02	Albania	23	16	23	19	23	22		18
03	Czech Republic	1	1	2	3	3	1	12	13
04	Germany	20	10	21	15	17	17		24
05	Russia	7	14	8	12	16	13		10	1
06	Denmark	10	11	4	9	4	7	4	6	5
07	San Marino	24	17	24	24	25	24		15
08	North Macedonia	12	3	1	2	2	2	10	17
09	Sweden	3	4	5	5	1	3	8	1	12
10	Slovenia	16	19	22	14	21	20		16
11	Cyprus	6	12	14	20	5	10	1	19
12	Netherlands	4	2	10	4	12	4	7	3	8
13	Greece	25	25	25	22	24	25		25
14	Israel	18	23	17	17	20	21		21
15	Norway
16	United Kingdom	11	13	7	6	8	9	2	22
17	Iceland	15	9	11	25	22	15		2	10
18	Estonia	21	8	20	11	11	14		9	2
19	Belarus	22	18	18	16	15	19		23
20	Azerbaijan	2	5	6	7	14	6	5	8	3
21	France	14	20	15	23	18	18		14
22	Italy	8	21	16	1	13	8	3	4	7
23	Serbia	17	22	12	18	10	16		20
24	Switzerland	5	6	3	8	6	5	6	5	6
25	Australia	9	15	9	10	9	12		7	4
26	Spain	19	24	19	21	19	23		11

References

1. "Norway Country Profile". EBU. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
2. Granger, Anthony (31 January 2018). "Norway: Confirms Eurovision Song Contest 2019 Participation". Eurovoix. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
3. Hyttebakk, Jon Marius (15 January 2018). "Her er artistene i MGP 2018". Nrk.no. Retrieved 15 January 2018.
4. McCaig, Ewan (25 January 2019). "Norway: Artists And Songs For MGP 2019 Announced". Eurovoix. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
5. "NRK vil ha flere ukjente talenter i MGP". NTB/ABC Nyheter. 13 May 2018. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
6. Hyttebakk, Jon Marius (28 September 2018). "Lover spektakulært MGP-show". NRK.no. Retrieved 29 October 2018.
7. Herbert, Emily (10 September 2018). "Norway: Over 1000 Entries Submitted for Melodi Grand Prix 2019". Eurovoix. Retrieved 26 January 2019.
8. Hansen, Tommy. "Slik blir avstemningen i årets MGP - escNorge". escnorge.net. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
9. Overlegen MGP-seier til KEiiNO
10. Medlemmene i den internasjonale juryen
11. Jordan, Paul (28 January 2019). "Eurovision 2019: Which country takes part in which Semi-Final?". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
12. "Exclusive: This is the Eurovision 2019 Semi-Final running order!". eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
13. Groot, Evert (30 April 2019). "Exclusive: They are the judges who will vote in Eurovision 2019!". Eurovision.tv. European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 30 April 2019.

External links

• Official NRK Melodi Grand Prix site