Minutes ago, Christer Björkman has revealed the hosts for Melodifestivalen 2016.
He declared that, because this is the 15th year of Melodifestivalen being on a six week tour, they wanted to celebrate this festive fact. They decided to do that by letting Melodifestivalen be hosted by eight hosts in total! The set-up is that Gina Dirawi is hosting every show and gets help from one or two new sidekicks each week. SVT has chosen Gina because she personifies the modern Melodifestivalen of the last few years.
This is what the six weeks will look like when it comes to hosting:
6/2: Deltävling 1 – Göteborg – Gina Dirawi & Petra Mede
13/2: Deltävling 2 – Malmö – Gina Dirawi & Charlotte Perrelli
20/2: Deltävling 3 – Norrköping – Gina Dirawi & Henrik Schyffert
27/2: Deltävling 4 – Gävle – Gina Dirawi & Sarah Dawn Finer
5/3: Andra chansen – Halmstad – Gina Dirawi, Ola Salo & Peter Jöback
12/3: Final – Stockholm – Gina Dirawi & William Spetz
Gina Dirawi got popular among youngsters with her YouTube channel Ana Gina and hosted Melodifestivalen in 2012 (with Sarah Dawn Finer and Helena Bergström) and 2013 (with Danny Saucedo), has hosted other big shows after that and even won the Kristallen award in Sweden for female hosts of the year in 2012 and 2013.
Petra Mede is a comedian and hosted all shows of Melodifestivalen 2009 alone. She also had the honour of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest 2013, which landed her so much recognition that she was asked to co-host Eurovision Song Contest Greatest Hits 2015, a show to celebrate 60 years of Eurovision. in London, together with famous comedian and talkshow host Graham Norton.
Charlotte Perrelli is best known as the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 1999. She won Melodifestivalen again in 2008 with Hero and made a comeback once more in 2012 with The Girl. She also has hosted a deltävling (semi-final) together with Lena Philipsson (Sweden 2004) in 2003 and has hosted all the shows of Melodifestivalen 2004.
Henrik Schyffert is a well-known comedian who has hosted the second deltävling of Melodifestivalen 2005.
Sarah Dawn Finer has participated as a singer in Melodifestivalen twice. On her debut in 2007 she came 4th with the song I Remember Love and in 2009 she reached 6th place with Moving On. In 2012 she hosted Melodifestivalen alongside Gina Dirawi and Helena Bergström. Her sketches as Lynda Woodruff from the EBU are well-loved by Eurovision fans.
Ola Salo and Peter Jöback have both enjoyed huge success in Sweden. Peter Jöback has had a succesful as both a musical singer and a pop singer and has participated in Melodifestivalen twice. In 1990 with En Sensation and in 2010 with Hollow, finishing second-to-last on both occassions. Ola Salo has won Melodifestivalen in 2007 with his band The Ark and went on to represent Sweden in Helsinki.
William Spetz is a comedian who has own YouTube channel. William has a huge fanbase among the younger people and Christer Björkman values the fact that he will be hosting the final alongside Gina greatly because of his ability to connect to the younger fanbase, something SVT would like for Melodifestivalen. William is the only host of Melodifestivalen 2016 who doesn’t have previous Melodifestivalen experience.
