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<title> Television in Sweden 2000 </title>
In this essay I intend to deal with the current situation for the TV-medium in Sweden, because Sweden is the only country I can relate to in that matter. In order to do that I must first describe some of the history behind the development of television, which I will do in the first paragraph.

Television as we know it actually made its debut with regular broadcasts in Berlin, Paris and London in 1935, and not in America as many people think. In Sweden we had to wait until 1956 for our first official television program. Two years later, at the 1958 World Championships in football, television got its big breakthrough among the Swedish people. The ratings went up from 20 000 to 150 000 and a year later, TV-license was paid for by more than 400 000 Swedish households. TV had become the number one topic of conversation in Sweden, and the television hosts were heroes. For more than 10 years, people had only one channel to watch, it wasn't until 1969 that Channel 2 was introduced. So what has become of the television medium from the days when 90% of the Swedish television viewers tuned in Lennart Hyland every weekend until today, year 2000? And has it been for better or for worse?

If I were to answer those questions based upon my own opinions I would put it this way: In a way, television in Sweden has not changed that much. It's still a favourite topic of conversation in society. And the people participating are still seen upon as celebrities. At the same time, everything has happened. We have gone from one channel to at least a dozen in many Swedish homes. Commercials have been introduced. Advertisers in the U.S alone spend more than $24 billion per year to broadcast commercials, for example. Television is now a very important tool in America to bring out political messages, and Sweden sees the same development. I think that television in Sweden in many ways is heading towards the right direction, because the abundance is now so much larger. Almost everybody can find a program that interests them, whether it's sport, education or entertainment.

The tendency, of course, is that the entertainment part gets more and more space, but that doesn't necessarily has to be a problem. In Sweden, we have a situation today where the remains of televisions early years consists of SVT, that is 
Kanal 1, TV 2 and Utbildningsradion. These channels are financed by a TV-license, which every owner of a television set in Sweden is obliged to pay. We also have a number of channels paid for by commercials, such as TV 3, Channel 5 and Z-TV. My belief is that channels containing commercials by nature get a more superficial image, because of the many commercial interruptions. For example, it's still hard for me to imagine a serious documentary about the war victims in eastern Angola being interrupted every half-hour for adverts of deodorants and snacks. I believe, though, that these channels with all their different scopes and target groups can co-exist in a functional way as long as each channel makes a clear statement of their own intentions, and doesn't try to produce programmes they are not suited to broadcast.

What I mean by this is that because SVT has a special responsibility - every viewer has to pay for these channels whether they want it or not - they should concentrate on producing the sort of programmes that are the most needed and that fills a clear function in society. Then, some might say that they do that already. But I don't feel they do it all the way. Yes, they should air the 
Olympic Games and report from the Eurovision Song Contest, as long as this serves a public interest. I don't think that docu-soaps like Expedition Robinson and soapoperas like Rederiet do, however. These programmes have their own forum in other channels. We shouldn't risk to lose televisions role as a serious and reliable news source. Television, with its big impact on peoples lives is too important for that. I found a quote on the SVT homepage about their intentions and responsibilities towards people, decided by the Swedish government: 
"SVT should provide television that gives entertainment that is formed by values where the joy of the moment isn't the only purpose."
This indicates that the Swedish government agrees, but my opinion is that their goals are not being completely achieved.
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