Mariette Hansson

Every year the Swedish entertainment industry is taken over for weeks by a single television show trying to find Sweden's representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. Melodifestivalen has grown into a center around which a large portion of the Swedish music industry revolves and is financed by. Is it really reasonable that so much power is wielded by a single production?

Melodifestivalen (direct translation: The Melody Festival) is an annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT). The competition is a six part tour (5 heats + the final) with stops in cities across Sweden to determine the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest. Melodifestivalen is also known informally as "Mello", or internationally as "Melfest".

Så ska det låta is a Swedish game show, based on the Irish The Lyrics Board. The show was introduced in 1997 and led by Peter Harryson until Peter Settman took over in 2006. Så ska det låta can be watched online at svt play for approximately one month after airing.

Svenska Hollywoodfruar is a Swedish reality television program on TV3. The concept of the series revolves around the pursuit of the lives of some Swedish women living a glamorous Hollywood lifestyle with their rich American husbands. The 2009 season of the series, which aired on TV3, consisted of five parts. The first episode aired on 14 September 2009 and was watched by approximately 600,000 viewers.

Sommarkrysset is a Swedish television program that is broadcast live from the Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm during summer. It was first shown on June 3, 2005. The program consists of live performances by famous artists in front of a live audience while viewers can call in and win a certain amount of money. To have the chance to win this money, the viewer first has to figure out a word which is derived by entering the answers to questions on a piece of graph paper with 5x5 squares like a crossword. The program is produced by Baluba Television after a TV-format created by Baluba. The Lotto draw is usually broadcast live with Ulrika Bengtsson as a presenter, although others have presented the draw at times. Over a longer period, Annika Duckmark has been a regular presenter.

Eight Swedish artists, representing different genres and generations, compete against each other each week by performing hit songs from eight different musical genres. Each week, the audience votes on their favorite contestants. Only one artist can be voted the Star of the Stars!

In the vacuum created by the absence of live music, TV4 and Live Nation invite you to a unique music experience together with some of Sweden's most popular artists.