SVT, the Swedish broadcaster, is quite busy at the moment. In just a few days the national final, Melodifestivalen, will pick a winner to represent the country in Helsinki. But who will win the spot as Swedish commentator? The battle has started after our partnersite escsweden.com revealed that SVT is looking for a replacement for Pekka Heino.

Pekka started as Swedish commentator for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, but in the beginning he really had troubles establishing himself in the position. He wasn’t used again until 1999 and after that it took another 4 years before he was given a third chance. However third chance worked as since 2003 he has been commentating the show regularly. It is currently not known if Pekka himself didn't want to continue or if SVT more or less fired him, but it has been confirmed that he is not a part of SVT’s team for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.

To escsweden.com project leader on SVT fiction, Christel Tholse Willers says: We think Pekka has done an exemplary job the previous years and we have always appreciated his commitment and his skills. Right now we are working on setting the right team for the Eurovision Song Contest and we wont comment on it before it is done, but our goal is once again to present a competent and committed commentator for the Swedish viewers.

Many names have already been mentioned as a possible choice; among those is Kristian Luuk, the host of this year’s Swedish Melodifestival. However the big favourites are Mark Levengood and Thomas Lundin. Both have a Finnish background and speaks the so-called “Finland Swedish” which is a dialect used among the big Swedish minority in Finland, both are big fans of the Eurovision Song Contest and have one way or another attended the contest several times.

Mark has previously hosted the Swedish final and Thomas is known as Finland’s expert in the Nordic preview shows where experts from each of the five Nordic countries, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark rate all the songs chosen for the contest. For Thomas the job as commentator will give him the opportunity to catch up with Eirikur Hauksson, who will be representing Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest. For the past many years he has been Iceland’s expert in this Nordic panel. Among fans, Thomas was considered one of the favourites to host the actual contest in Helsinki, but YLE chose not to use him for this.

Stay tuned on esctoday.com for more information about what seems to be a battle between Mark Levengood and Thomas Lundin, however several other possibilities can be considered a likely choice as well.