This morning Swedish broadcaster revealed the hosts of Melodifestivalen. The show will be hosted by comedian Marika Carlsson, Eurovision 2011 singer Eric Saade, television personality Kodjo Akolor and entertainer Sarah Dawn Finer.
The hosts were introduced by Melodifestivalen competition producer Christer Björkman and new content producer Henric von Zweigbergk.
The 2019 lineup continues the Melodifestivalen tradition of mixing up the show hosts. In 2009 Petra Mede hosted the show on her own, but from 2010 to 2015 a number of duos and trios hosts, included Eurovision stars Måns Zelmerlöw and Sanna Nielsen, comedian Gina Dirawi, and action movie star Dolph Lundgren. In 2016, seven stars shared the hosting, while earlier this year David Lundgren did a Petra and hosted on his own.
Earlier in the year it was confirmed that veteran Melodifestivalen and Eurovision writer and director Edward af Sillén will be on board as a creative consultant. He has been brought on after the Melodifestivalen 2018 shows were criticised and suffered low ratings.
Marika Carlsson
Marika Carlsson is a well-established Swedish comedian and won Best Female Standup Comedian at the 2006 Swedish Comedy Awards. As well as performing standup, she is a personality on Swedish television. She is particularly known as a regular panelist on the political comedy show Parlamentet.
Her most Melfest moment so far came in 2016, when she co-hosted the QX Gaygalan, an annual gala extravaganza celebrating Sweden’s LGBT community.
Eric Saade
Eric Saade is best known for representing Sweden at Eurovision 2011, where his poptastic song “Popular” place third. He is also known for his Melodifestivalen 2010 entry “Manboy” and his recent hit “Wide Awake”.
Eric previously hosted the Green Room at Eurovision 2013, where he infamously referred to host Petra Mede as a “#MILF”.
Kodjo Akolor
Is a comedian and television personality. He has previously co-hosted Talang (Sweden’s Got Talent) and is a co-host of the popular P3 morning radio show Morgonpasset. He has also been a regular host of the annual fundraising telethon, Musikhjälpen. He’s also very good at impersonations.
Sarah Dawn Finer
Sarah Dawn Finer has co-hosted Melodifestivalen twice before. In 2012 she hosted alongside Gina Dirawi and Helena Bergström, and in 2016 she was part of the seven-person hosting line-up.
Sarah has competed as a singer in Melodifestivalen, and is also known for her comedy character, EBU spokesperson Lynda Woodruff. It is not known whether Woodruff will make an appearance at Melodifestivalen 2019.
What do you think of the Melodifestivalen 2019 hosts? Who would you like to see competing in Melfest? Share your thoughts below!
the host selection promises to make this year’s melfest interesting, i would love to see a shared moment od marika and linda woodruff…. hope this means the songs will be good too.
linda woodruffffff!!!!!
Im already tired of the hate against Sweden. If i owned this site i would bann a LOT of people and when they came back under another name i would bann them again and so on 🙂
An interesting choice of hosts I must say! Sarah will bring back it as usual, Marika and Eric will be interesting to watch. And Kodjo an my favorite duo host in P3 so I’m very happy with the choice!
As usual, Wiwibloggs calls it.
Personally, I like male/female duos the best as hosts, but this seems good as well. I’m not a huge fan of Eric Saade and find him a little annoying, but the other hosts are good and hopefully they’re given a good script to work with.
My prayers were heard! Under the last article about the presenters, I said that I would like to have an eyecandy-man at Marika’s side. And well: Kodjo defo IS! Yummy! Let’s do this! 😀 😀
My concern is that 4 presenters is too much. That there could be one just left floundering without a clear role. Even in 2017 I found 3 presenters a bit too much.
I got my friend into Melfest this year, he loved it – so he’s gutted that it’s not Fab Freddie and David Lindgren again because he loved them.
I just hope the quality and standard is higher this year.
Hopefully Lynda Woodruff has been killed in a freak skiing accident. I really hate her.
I like Sarah Dawn Finer, though.
4 presenters is so bad.
So lame like Portugal 2018.
Please be better than that.
Better? Like 5 hosts? xD
Very good eclectic choice. Interesting with Eric Saade, not known for hosting. He could be as bad as Danny but also as good as Måns. Think it will be great.
If only the same thing could be said about the artists chosen so far..
Please nooo not Kodjo and Marika.
Eric and Sarah will be great
Why not? Kodjo is hilarious, love him, and Marika is great aswell… think they nailed their choices when it came to hosts!
Why not? Marika is funny and sharp. Kodjo is great. Not sure about Eric
I think the line-up would be better excluding Eric. I love Marika, Kodjo and Sarah! (I’m from Sweden and therefore very familiar with what they have done in the past).
Eric? I doubt it, but I won’t judge on beforehand. He can surprise me of course.
But for now, I’m just happy that I already love 3 of these 4.
Awesome!
Ugh first Eurovision now Melfest why does everyone seem to think that having more than three hosts is a good idea?
Cause it is
I agree. i prefer 1 or a couple. 4 is too many, noone shine. ANd for this line up, i only like sarah as host, so far. I dont know the black ones, so i’ll give them the benefit of doubt, but Eric i think is terrible. Hope they prove me wrong, thought.
You don’t think they will host a week each?
I mean 4 semifinals, one andra chansen and the final, they will probably host one week each and then join in the andra chansen and the final
“The black ones” lmfao racism at its finest. Marika and Kodjo have names so please use them.
That’s a bit harsh on poor David…so he doesn’t work out at the gym nine hours a day, so what…his body is fine as it is, and probably closer to the average regular viewer than a Samir or Viktor.