TV viewers being what they are, the votes are based not solely on the singers vocal performance, but also on his or her looks, clothes, entertainment value, and other factors.

Idol in Norway is unique in that contestants have been allowed to perform self composed songs since the first season in 2003.

However, the official number of legal contestants was narrowed down to nine when Idol-finalist Jeanette Vik was disqualified for being underage.

Viewers had several hours following the broadcast of the show to phone in their votes for their favorite contestant.

But the judges were not pleased and got to take two more straight to final, Erik Flaa and David Bakke, making the total of finalists to 12.

Before the third finalshow Iselin Andresen withdrew from the competition, and the last person to be eliminated, Audun Rensel, was given a second chance.

The age limit is again 16-35 and auditions are currently held in Oslo (18 April), Trondheim (9 May), Stavanger (16 May) and Bergen.

The judges were[2] Gunnar Greve (founder of MER Music), Tshawe Baqwa (from the urban pop-duo Madcon) and Silje Larsen Borgan (co-founder of Little Big Sister and Nora Collective).

The winner of the tenth season of Norwegian Idol 2018 was Øystein Hegvik, who performed the original song "Before I Go"[3] in the final episode.

The song was written by Kristin Marie Skolem, Thomas Alexander Strandskogen and Victor Karlsen Klæbo - all students at Lillehammer Institute of Music Production and Industries, also known as LIMPI.

[4] After being released, the song made it directly into Spotify's Norway Top 50 list, were it peaked at 23rd place.