Germany – The German broadcaster NDR has decided that its national section will take on a new format this year… with pre-stages resembling a Melodifestivalen style contest after a Swiss-style upload platform for entries.
‘Unser Song Für Schweden‘ will consist of the following:
- Submission of songs (1st of September 2015 till October 11th)
- Undecided number of entrants to enter one of the 6 shows which will be aired through November and December on Einsplus.
- 18 artists to qualify to the next stage chosen by a jury (Konstantin Gropper, leader of the band Get Well Soon, Anette Humpe, from the duo Ich + Ich and producers Markus Ganter and Swen Meyer).
- 6 acts to be presented on each of the 3 shows on February 12th, 19th, and 26th.
- 4 entries from each of the 3 shows will make 12 songs in the final line-up of Unser Song Für Schweden on the 4th of March 2016.
Germany does not want to finish with ‘nul points‘ again. Do you think this will make Germany’s election stronger?
The Eurovision Times 
I don’t like the idea of an online platform. It’s messy.
Good luck to us!
The online platform isn’t a good idea but that’s how the 2 previous winners of the national final had submitted their songs.I hope it will work out for the best!
Well hopefully it means they’ll get a winner who actually wants to go to Eurovision, unlike the snafu in this year’s selection.
it’s sad: i get the “sweden is doing amazing let’s copy them” but it never works when you copy someone else’s format, you do well and win by creating your own; finland won with the old euroviisut format, germany itself won with their own tv-reality-like show giving them lena… plus mf needs a lot of entries and singers, and the latest nf in germany proved that there is very little interest for esc in germany anymore
and the internet platform has always been a disaster in esc result wise!
This sounds overly redundant, à la the old UMK format. As such, I fully expect Germany to blow everyone out of the water for NF song quality this year. Viel glück!
Hmm not quite Melodifestivalen, but I see where they are going.
Personally I don’t think the format matters, whether you have a semi, 2 semis, 4 semis, 2nd chance, etc etc, at the end of the day its all down to luck, will that killer song be submitted? Songs that win Eurovision, obviously win their National Finals, no matter what the format.
Sweden’s success isn’t down to the fact that it has semi finals and a 2nd chance round, its down to the fact that great songs are submitted to SVT for them to pick from.
The key to success is the country’s attitude, people say BBC and France2/3 should send better acts, but the truth is ESC has such a bad rep none of the good acts want to enter. Doesn’t matter how many Semi Finals you have, if you can’t change that perception, (how do you change a national perception of something?) then you are doomed to fail?