Prior to the 2017 Contest, Norway had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest fifty-five times since their first entry in. Norway had won the contest on three occasions: in 1985 with the song "La det swinge" performed by Bobbysocks!, in 1995 with the song "Nocturne" performed by Secret Garden and in 2009 with the song "Fairytale" performed by Alexander Rybak. Norway also had the two dubious distinctions of having finished last in the Eurovision final more than any other country and for having the most "nul points" in the contest, the latter being a record the nation shared together with Austria. The country had finished last eleven times and had failed to score a point during four contests. Following the introduction of semi-finals in, Norway has only failed to qualify on three occasions, their most recent failure occurring in with the song "Icebreaker" performed by Agnete. The Norwegian national broadcaster, Norsk rikskringkasting, broadcasts the event within Norway and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. The broadcaster has traditionally organised the national final Melodi Grand Prix, which has selected the Norwegian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in all but one of their participation. On 9 June 2016, NRK revealed details regarding their selection procedure and announced the organization of Melodi Grand Prix 2017 in order to select the 2017 Norwegian entry.
Before Eurovision
''Melodi Grand Prix 2017''
Melodi Grand Prix 2017 was the 55th edition of the Norwegian national final Melodi Grand Prix and it selected Norway's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2017. In the aim of improving Norway's chances of victory, international juries were reintroduced into the Melodi Grand Prix format; international juries were previously used to select Norway's entries in and, which resulted in the selection of songs that went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest.
Competing entries
A submission period was opened by NRK on 9 June 2016 and lasted until 11 September 2016. Prior to the deadline, a record-breaking number of 1,035 entries were submitted to NRK. Songwriters of any nationality were allowed to submit entries, while the performers of the selected songs were 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. In late 2016 and early 2017, ten songs from different genres were chosen to participate, and the selected singers, entries and composers were revealed on 7 February.
Final
Ten songs competed during the final on 11 March 2017, hosted by and. The winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, the top four entries were selected by a 50/50 combination of public votes 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 through SMS voting. 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. In the Gold Final, the winner, "Grab the Moment" performed by JOWST, was selected solely by the public vote, receiving 46,064 votes. Melodi Grand Prix 2017 was seen by 1,155,000 viewers in Norway, roughly 158,000 less than the viewing figures for 2016.
At Eurovision
The Eurovision Song Contest 2017 took place at the International Exhibition Centre in Kiev, Ukraine and consisted of two semi-finals on 9 and 11 May and the final on 13 May 2017. According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big 5" were required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progressed to the final. Norway was required to be ranked among the top ten entries from their respective semi final in order to compete in the final. The European Broadcasting Union split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. On 31 January 2017, a special allocation draw was held which placed each country into one of the two semi-finals, as well as which half of the show they would perform in. Norway was placed into the second semi-final, which was held on 11 May 2017, and was scheduled to perform in the second half of the show. Once all the competing songs for the 2017 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Originally, Norway was set to perform in position 13, following the entry from Croatia and before the entry from Switzerland. However, following Russia's withdrawal from the contest on 13 April and subsequent removal from the running order of the second semi-final, Norway's performing position shifted to 12.
