at Melodifestivalen, was stopped in 1961. The competition became a stand-alone television programme in 1960, known as the . In the event's early years, it was broadcast to Norway and Denmark through the Nordvision network. The competition adopted its current name, Melodifestivalen, in 1967. Melodifestivalen has failed to be staged on three occasions. In 1964, the competition was cancelled due to an artist's strike; Sweden did not send a song to Eurovision that year. Sweden was absent at Eurovision for a second time in 1970 because of a Nordic boycott of the voting system, which had led to a four-way tie for first place at the 1969 contest. After SR staged the 1975 contest in Stockholm, left-wing groups argued that Sweden should not spend money to win and host Eurovision again. This led to mass demonstrations against commercial music and the organisation of an anti-commercial . Therefore, Sweden decided not to send a song to Eurovision 1976 but returned in 1977. Participation Hundreds of songs and performers have entered Melodifestivalen since its debut. Although songwriters living outside Sweden were once not allowed to enter Melodifestivalen, the 2012 contest marked the first time foreign songwriters could submit entries, provided that they collaborated with a Swedish songwriter. To be eligible, songwriters and performers must be at least sixteen years of age on the day of the first Eurovision semi-final. Until 2001, participation in the festival was limited to a single night. The number of contestants ranged from five to twelve. A two-round system was used intermittently between 1981 and 1998, in which all but five of the contestants were eliminated in the first round of voting. Failure to reach the second round under this system was seen as a major failure for a prominent artist; when Elisabeth Andreassen failed to qualify in 1984, it almost ended her music career. The introduction of weekly heats in 2002 increased the number of contestants to thirty-two. At least ten of the contestants must perform in Swedish. A CD of each year's competing songs has been released since 2001, and a DVD of the heats and final since 2003. Due to the proliferation of digital download and streaming into the 2010s, DVDs have not been issued for Melodifestivalen in recent years. Melodifestivalen has been the launch-pad for the success of popular local acts, such as ABBA, Tommy Körberg, and Lisa Nilsson. The competition has played host