Martin Österdahl executive producer of this years Melodifestival talked to esctoday.com on yet another big success for Melodifestivalen this year and reveals some chocking news on the new format for next year.

Hi Martin is everything set for saturday?

Hello, yes everything is set for saturday and once again we will deliver a fantastic show.

Can you please tell us the story behind the running order of the songs?

The running order of the songs is decided in order to build up expectations and to have the best mix of the different participatings songs. We want all the songs to have a top presentation on stage, we do also try not to have 3 ballads in a row but rather a mix of all the songs.

This years Melodifestival has been a huge succes so far?

Yes it has been more than we did expect. The most wonderful thing is ofcourse the recordbreaking viewfigures and the recordnumber of televote record last saturday at the Second Chance Final when we had over 1 000 000 vote registred. This shows that Melodifestivalen still holds the position as the biggest t-show in Sweden and still is the biggest national pre-selection in Europe, this is something we at SVT are very proud of.

Have the results from the semi-finals suprised you in any way?

Well perhaps the fact that it seems that people have been voted for other types of songs then they have in the past. The winners hasn't been the biggest favourites all through the semi-finals and that is very exciting. The result from the first semi-final is the most traditional one, and then we have more new stuff from the other semi-finals.

Can you tell us something on next years format?

Yes I can, there will 5 songs competing in Studio 1 at the television centre in Stockholm ….hahahahaha there I fooled you didn't I? Nothing is decided on Melodifestivalen 2008 yet, after the final on Saturday we will evaluate this year and then start thinking of the future if there will be any changes or if we stick to the same format for another year.
Was that a boring answer or what?

Yes Martin it was very boring, but we would like to thank you for taking the time talking to us and wish you the best of luck with the show on Saturday.

Thankyou very much and let me say hello to all reader of esctoday.com I hope you will enjoy the show on saturday.