In the first round of voting, a public televote exclusively selected the top four entries to advance to the competition's second round—the Gold Final.

In the final, Norway performed in position 20 and placed first out of the 25 participating countries, winning the contest with 387 points.

Norway had won the contest on two occasions: in 1985 with the song "La det swinge" performed by Bobbysocks!

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.

All shows were hosted by Per Sundnes and 2008 Norwegian Eurovision entrant Maria Haukaas Storeng and televised on NRK1 as well as streamed online at NRK's official website nrk.no.

A new rule required songwriters to hold Norwegian citizenship or have permanent residency in Norway in order to be eligible to compete.

Performers of the selected songs would be chosen by NRK in consultation with the songwriters, and the broadcaster reserved the right to directly invite certain artists and composers to compete in addition to the public call for submissions.

In each semi-final the top two directly qualified to the final, while the third and fourth placed songs proceeded to the Last Chance round.

The results of the public televote were then revealed by Norway's five regions and added to the jury scores, leading to the victory of "Fairytale" performed by Alexander Rybak with 747,888 votes.

On 14 March, the music video for "Fairytale" showing Alexander Rybak's performance at Melodi Grand Prix 2009 was released to the public.

[34] Approaching the contest, Rybak garnered international media attention especially in Russia, with a crew from Russian television channel NTV traveling to Oslo in April to record a documentary on the singer that later aired during the programme Glavnyy geroy.

[30][35] Further media attention was made in the United States where he was featured in reports on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The World's Got Talent.

[36][37] According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Four" (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete for the final; the top nine songs from each semi-final as determined by televoting progress to the final, and a tenth was determined by back-up juries.

In the aftermath of the show, Svabø was criticized for chattering while the Russian hosts were speaking, and for some vulgar comments.

During the coverage of the voting, Svabø was heard on live television making phone calls to Rolf Løvland, Elisabeth Andreassen, Hanne Krogh, Trond Giske, Hans Bjerkås and Jens Stoltenberg.

Rybak was joined on stage by three dancers that performed a series of artistic folk dance routines and acrobatics and two backing vocalists.

The LED screens displayed a night view of traditional wooden Norwegian houses lighting up with the moon and stars above and fireworks going off.

[42][43] The three dancers on stage with Alexander Rybak were members of the Frikar Dance Company: Hallgrim Hansegård, Sigbjørn Rua and Torkjell Lunde, while the two backing vocalists were Jorunn Hauge and Karianne Kjærnes.

[44] At the end of the show, Norway was announced as having finished in the top 10 and subsequently qualifying for the grand final.

This jury judged each entry based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.

In addition, no member of a national jury was permitted to be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently.