Swedish Song Contest – Melodifestivalen

For the first time ever, all Swedes had the opportunity to vote by text message when Sweden’s biggest TV event, Melodifestivalen – the Swedish selection heats for the Eurovision song contest – appeared on TV screens over six nights earlier in spring this year. More than 300,000 Swedes chose to vote by text message in the final which was held on 14 March.

With more than three million viewers, Melodifestivalen – the equivalent of Denmark’s Melodi Grand Prix – is Sweden’s biggest annual TV event. Six shows had the population spellbound, and overall, around 5.5 million people voted for the competing acts. And, in a new innovation this year, all Swedes were able to vote by text message, with more than 300,000 viewers taking advantage of this opportunity on the final evening of the show. Previously, only those who had a subscription with TeliaSonera were able to vote by text message:

”We are delighted to be able to offer our viewers enhanced voting options. It is always easy to grab your mobile phone and send a text message and we get the impression that our young viewers, especially, are crazy about this way of voting. At the end of the day, we expect more and more people to choose to vote by text message in the future,” says Håkan Sandberg, project manager with SVT.

Crucial overview

SVT chose Unwire as developer and supplier of the platforms that were used for voting during Melodifestivalen. The system handles both telephone and text message votes and the figures are collated in clear tables and graphs shown in a program which SVT has access to via Unwire’s server. Everything is updated constantly and the producer has a constant overview of the situation while the show is running. And, according to Håkan Sandberg, the fact the system is so user-friendly is a crucial factor:

”Our broadcasts are transmitted live, so it is extremely important that we can deliver results very quickly – typically within the space of just a minute. Therefore, it is crucial that Unwire’s program is easy to navigate and is completely adapted to our needs.”

As an extra precaution, SVT chose to have an Unwire employee on-site during the live transmissions:

”We had an employee from Unwire with us for the broadcasts and this helped ensure that everything ran smoothly. It gave us a great sense of security.”

From song festival to fixed program module

The intention is that Unwire’s platform will be developed further so that it can also be used for numerous other SVT programmes. Flexibility is crucial in this respect:

“Several of our programmes will benefit from the new text message voting option. We will now go ahead and use the same system in several other programmes. As a consequence, we will cooperate with Unwire in the development of a general platform that is suited to all broadcasts. In this respect, Unwire has shown a great understanding of our needs. We are extremely happy with Unwire,” says Håkan Sandberg.