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Melodifestivalen 2010 was the 50th edition of the Swedish music competition Melodifestivalen, which was organised by Sveriges Television (SVT) and took place over a six-week period between 6 February and 13 March 2010. The winner of the competition was Anna Bergendahl with the song "This Is My Life", who represented in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, where she failed to qualify for the final placing eleventh with 62 points in the second semi-final.

Format
2010 saw six weekly shows held in six Swedish cities (namely Örnsköldsvik, Sandviken, Gothenburg, Malmö, Örebro and Stockholm). Comedian Christine Meltzer, three-time Melodifestivalen participant and 2015 Eurovision winner, Måns Zelmerlöw, and actor Dolph Lundgren were revealed as hosts 10 November 2009.

For the 2010 contest SVT decided to change parts of the format. The duels during the heats introduced in 2009 were abolished. The single "international jury" used in 2009, which selected an 11th finalist and voted during the final as a 12th jury, was also abolished. This was replaced by a complete change in the jury voting during the final. Instead of 11 regional juries there would be 6 international juries in Russia, Ireland, Norway, Greece, Serbia and France voting on the 10 finalists along with 5 Swedish juries in Luleå, Umeå, Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholm. Other changes were:
 * In 2010, it was allowable to send multiple language versions of the same track as separate entries.
 * Non-Swedish nationals could now submit entries to the wildcard selection of the contest.
 * Viewers could use SVT's website to vote for the last wildcard in the contest.

Stage design
For the fourth time, the set was designed by Viktor Brattström, with the intention to provide the feeling of a club environment: "This year we can present a scene that should evoke the idea of an exclusive club environment. Levels and stairs offers artists the opportunity for action and linking the stage into a place of celebration." The stage uses different height to allow the artists to use the stage most effectively to create their own number, and extensive use of LED screens to create different moods.

Wildcards
As since 2004 SVT has specially invited four artists and composers to compete in Melodifestivalen, in order to diversify the musical qualify of the contest. As well as this the 2010 contest introduced a "web wildcard" competition, in which songwriters who were not linked to any record companies could publish compositions over two weeks in September and October 2009 on SVT Melodifestivalen website. The winner of the web wildcard was selected by the Swedish public through SMS voting, with the song that received the most votes by 12 November competing in the televised heats.

The first wildcard competing in Melodifestivalen 2010 was revealed by SVT on 3 November 2009, with Darin selected by SVT to perform in the contest with the song "Out Of My Life", written by Tony Nilsson and Henrik Jansson. SVT revealed the winner of the web wildcard contest on 12 November 2009 on SVT's morning news programme Gomorron Sverige. The winning song was "Come And Get Me Now", performed by MiSt. On 5 December MiST and Melodifestivalen's producer Christer Björkman approached the band Highlights, a participant in the Dansbandskampen competition, to join MiSt on stage in Melodifestivalen, which they accepted.

On 16 November 2009, Salem Al Fakir was announced as the second wildcard participant, and it was announced he would take part with the song "Keep on Walking", which he wrote and composed himself. SVT revealed the third wildcard for MF 2010 on 3 December 2009: Peter Jöback was selected by SVT to compete in the competition, where he would sing "Hollow", composed by Anders Hansson and Fredrik Kempe. SVT's fourth and final wildcard was announced on 7 January 2010. Soul singer Pauline Kamusewu would compete in the second semifinal of Melodifestivalen with the song "Sucker for Love", written by herself and Fredrik "Fredro" Ödesjö, Andreas Levander and Johan "Jones" Wetterberg.

Web wildcard
The first web wildcard contest for Melodifestivalen was held from September to November 2009. This allowed new promising talents a new way to enter Melodifestivalen instead of through the regular public submission process, in which amateur musicians rarely succeeded. Musicians who didn't have or had never had any contract with a music publishing house or never had any of their work published could enter songs onto SVT's Melodifestivalen website from 21 September to 4 October. From 14 October to 12 November 2009, the qualifying songs were voted for by SMS voting in Sweden, with the winning song being decided on 12 November 2009

246 songs were submitted for the web wildcard, with 180 selected to compete in the competition, after disqualifying those that did not meet the rules of the contest. Over the following weeks the bottom songs in the public SMS vote were eliminated from the contest, leaving 10 songs left:


 * 14 October 2009 – all 180 entries were made available for voting
 * 21 October 2009 – 100 entries went on to the next round
 * 28 October 2009 – 50 entries went on to the next round
 * 4–12 November 2009– ten entries were left, one would be voted out every day
 * 12 November 2009 – winner announced

On 4 November the top ten songs were announced by SVT. Each day, until 11 November 2009, one song was eliminated from the competition, with only three songs left. The winner was announced on 12 November at 8:45 am on SVT's morning news programme Gomorron Sverige, with the duo MiSt (Mia Terngård & Stefan Lebert) winning the contest with the song was "Come and Get Me Now".

Disqualified songs
On 14 October 2009 SVT revealed the first 27 entries which the jury had selected, of a total of 2860 submissions to the contest. However, on 15 October 2009, it was announced that "Never Heard of Him", composed by Figge Boström and Anna Engh, was disqualified after it appeared briefly on Figge Boström's MySpace page. The song was replaced on 20 October 2009 by "You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot", written by Tobias Lundgren, Johan Fransson and Tim Larsson.

On 27 November 2009, the song "Åt helvete för sent" was disqualified by the public broadcaster of Sweden, SVT, because the decision on the artist to perform it (Rikard Wolff, Sara Löfgren or Mathias Holmgren) was being obstructed by the team responsible for the song. The entry to replace the disqualified song was the song "The Saviour" by Henrik Janson and Tony Nilsson.

Competing entries
32 songs competed in Melodifestivalen 2010. 27 of them were selected from a public call for songs, in which public songwriters and artists could send in songs to SVT, until 22 September 2009. Five songs were selected to compete in the contest as wildcards: SVT internally selected four songwriting teams and artists to compete in the contest, to diversify the musical quality of the competition; a final song was selected through a "web wildcard" competition, with the Swedish public selecting one song by an unknown act to progress to the heats.

Contest overview
The heats were held this year in Örnsköldsvik, Sandviken, Gothenburg and Malmö. SVT released 13 artists on 30 November 2009 which performed in the first and the second heat. On 7 December 2009 a further 14 entries were released, who competed in the third and fourth heats.