After 20 years, Christer Björkman leaves his position as Melodifestivalen's competition producer and one of the heaviest rulers in music Sweden.

- It ties the sack together for me.

We started with a year when we had no idea what we were doing when we went on tour and we end with a year when we also do not know what to do, he says.

One of the few who stood up for the middle

Between 1994 and 1999, half a million viewers left the Melodifestivalen.

Something had to change, either SVT would invest more or invest less.

The then entertainment director Svante Stockselius chose the second alternative in 2002 and commissioned the former Mello winner Christer Björkman to find 32 artists who could perform and the competition was divided into competitions held in different Swedish cities.

- I was one of the few who stood up for the Melodifestivalen then and I had worked with an awful lot of artists over the years and I think they wanted to, says Christer Björkman.

"No need to say no"

Over the years, Christer Björkman has managed to give the Melodifestivalen a boost, but he has also been criticized for having too much power over the competition and who is allowed to participate, both among songwriters and artists.

- I do not have to say against it.

You can have that perception, of course, but we know that we have generated a lot of new careers, both on the artist and composer side, he says.

The United States needs ESC

In 2019, Christer Björkman announced that the next project would be an American Eurovision - state against state - in the same way as the countries compete against each other in Eurovision.

This summer, it was planned for the Christmas weekend 2021, but according to Björkman, the pandemic has put everything in a more uncertain situation, but it will be over, he says.

- When the competition was created in Europe, it was to unite a broken continent that had been destroyed by a war.

They are not far from there right now, they are very polarized.

They need something that unites and we believe that this can be it, says Christer Björkman.