Adam Alsing, who will copresent the Swedish national final for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007 with Agneta Sjödin, raised the rivalry stakes between TV4 and SVT this week by calling SVT's Lilla Melodifestivalen “a low budget copy” in an Expressen interview.

TV4 took over the responsibility of sending aSwedish representative to the Junior EurovisionSong Contest last year, after the national broadcaster SVT pulled out in favour of the MGP Nordic contest.TV4 managed to pull the switch off, and secured a successful third place at the 2006 contest for Sweden with Molly Sanden's ballad "Det Finaste Någon Kan Få". This year they hope to pull off a similar feat.

Alsing, co-host with Sjödin at the 2006 selection, and was also the Swedish commentator at the Bucharest final last year, told Expressen "last year I was impressed how we managed to handle the selection, there were a very high quality of all participating youngsters in our show." His "low budget copy" remarks are bound to have a sting for the national broadcaster, whose efforts from 2003 to 2005 failed to create any particular success on the JESC circuit, with three 15th placings in a row.