Two of the year's biggest television events clash in February. The Winter Olympics will be held between February 6 and 22. This means that three of the five Melodifestivalen competitions will be held at the same time as the games in Milan, where NHL professionals will be participating for the first time since 2014.
This means tougher competition for viewers and less engagement than usual for Melodifestivalen.
It will have a negative impact. That's just the way it is. We will have competition at 8:00 PM on Saturdays. Then there will be someone else jumping and skipping somewhere. You have to count on that, says Anders Wistbacka.
“Fight for number one”
In addition, SVT is broadcasting the Winter Olympics for the first time in 16 years, since 2010. So the competition could become internal. Melodifestivalen is usually broadcast on the broad channel SVT1. Now Wistbacka does not know how it will be, the competition may have to move to SVT2.
I will fight for number one. We focus on SVT Play, but broadcast (linear) is still very, very important to us. So whether we are number one or number two, that is important. I guess some manager will have to decide that.
But you haven't yet decided which channel you're going to be on, linearly?
I know I'm going to do a program at 8pm on Saturdays for six weeks. Then someone else can put it where they think is best.
The Bronze Crash
SVT and TV4 share the ice hockey, but the games in the playoffs are distributed between the channels only after the group stage. So the semi-final on February 21st could clash with a possible Swedish bronze medal match in the men's ice hockey tournament.
Anders Wistbacka grimaces.
"We just have to hope that Sweden doesn't advance. No, we'll probably be able to get along somehow," he says with a laugh.
