Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 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 961,000 viewers in Norway with a market share of 68.6%.

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]

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. 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. 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]

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]
Italy – Nicola Caligiore  Georgia – Sopho Toroshelidze  Spain – Antonio Losada Vela  Denmark – Mads Enggaard  Portugal – Isabel Roma   Switzerland – Reto Peritz  North Macedonia – Aleksandra Jovanovska  Ireland – Zbyszek Zalinski  Hungary – Lőrinc Bubnó  Israel – Amit Wulff

Norway performed fifteenth in the second semi-final, following the entry from Albania and preceding the entry from the 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 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]

The following members comprised the Norwegian jury:[13]

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

Detailed voting results from Norway (Semi-final 2)[14]

Draw	Country	Jury							Televote
		F.-U. 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

Detailed voting results from Norway (Final)[15]

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