Melodi Grand Prix 2018

Melodi Grand Prix 2018 was the 56th edition of Melodi Grand Prix, Norway's national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was held on Saturday, 10 March 2018 in the Oslo Spektrum; which has hosted all the Norwegian finals since 2001. The hosts were Kåre Magnus Bergh and Silya Nymoen, who also hosted the finals in 2015 and 2016, and the former also in 2017. Ten songs participated in the final, and like 2017, the winner was chosen by the viewers together with ten international jury groups. Alexander Rybak won the competition with his self-composed song "That's How You Write a Song". Rybak also won both the Norwegian and international finals in 2009. Rybak represented Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Portugal in May 2018. There, the song finished as number 15 in the final.

As in previous years, NRK invited Norwegian and foreign musicians to submit songs to the competition. This time, however, the invitation came in record time – already on 31 January 2017, a month and a half before the final of Melodi Grand Prix 2017. "transl. We are in the run-up to this year's MGP final, but we are working in parallel to find songs and artists for MGP 2018. This is a part of a long-term plan for Norway to win the Eurovision Song Contest again", said project manager Stig Karlsen. The submission deadline for contributions was 10 September 2017.

When the deadline had expired, NRK had received close to 1,200 songs, which was a new record for the second year in a row. The submitted songs were filtered down to around 100 and then assessed by a listening group of around 50 people. The ten finalists were presented during a press conference on 15 January 2018, and the songs were released in their entirety on the same day.

Among the participants were former winners such as Alexander Rybak, Stella Mwangi and Aleksander Walmann. Otherwise, established artists such as Alejandro Fuentes, Nicoline Berg Kaasin and Ida Maria participated.

Ahead of the final, however, the newcomer Rebecca and "Who We Are" were the clear favorites with betting companies and the Norwegian Grand Prix club. In the seats behind were Alexander Rybak as well as Stella and Alexandra. However, Vidar Villa's "Moren din" was the most played song by the participants on the streaming service Spotify. The day before the final, "Moren din" had been played over one million times, while runner-up "Scandilove" had just over 300,000 plays on Spotify.

As a prelude to the final, NRK produced several top-up programs online, radio and television. On NRK P1, the artists were presented two by two every Saturday in the program Snart MGP, and then daily during the final week on Nitimen. In addition, NRK1 had daily evening broadcasts from Oslo Spektrum. The broadcasts went live on NRK1 as part of the evening program Norge nå. The final was broadcast live on NRK1 and NRK TV from 19:55 to 22:18. The broadcast was also broadcast on NRK P1 with Ole Christian Øen as commentator.

During the broadcast, NRK visited a Grand Prix party in Trondheim. In addition, the channel paid tribute to viewers and supporters of the competition, among other things, an enthusiastic fan was brought up on stage and paid tribute with a wreath and song. In the intermission number before the gold final, Karoline Krüger and Anita Skorgan performed with "For vår jord", which won the competition 30 years earlier. In the break before the gold duel, JOWST and Aleksander Walmann performed with last year's winning tune, "Grab the Moment". Also on stage were the Oslo bassoon choir and Didrik Solli-Tangen.

The entries were announced on 15 January, while the starting order was announced on 2 March.