The name Martin Österdahl may not be too familiar with many outside Sweden until you tell them that he was the Executive Producer of the Eurovision Song Contest 2013.
This was the first contest for some time which was run as a cost-neutral project. The show was staged in Malmö, the Grand Final and its Executive Producer were nominated in the category Best Entertainment Program at that year’s prestigious Kristallen Awards in Sweden.
Mr Österdahl is moving on after ten years to pursue other interests.
In an article written by Hanna Dowling from SVT he is quoted as saying:
My focus as program director has been to strengthen the impact of public service broadcasting in Sweden. Programme Director job was a natural extension of my five years as a software client. I am proud of how we developed the supply of SVT in recent years. After a total of ten years at the company, I now want to move on. I am grateful for all my experiences I have had.
Safa Safiyari, commissioning editor of SVTs children’s programmes and head of children’s channel Barnkanalen, will step in as acting director of programmes from January 1 2015 until a permanent replacement is found. Österdahl will officially leave his post on December 31 2014.
On c21media.net Andrew Dickens quotes svt’s outgoing CEO Eva Hamilto:
Österdahl had a winning mentality. During his years in SVT’s management team, he has developed our programming and initiated successes like Eternal Glory (Mästarnasmästare), The Great Swedish Adventure (AlltförSverige) and Moraeus& More (Moraeus med mera).
