Schlager music
Schlager music is a style of popular music, a catchy instrumental accompaniment to vocal pieces of pop music with simple, happy-go-lucky, sentimental lyrics. It is prevalent in Central and Northern Europe, Southeast Europe, in France, Belgium and the UK. In the United States it is known as'entertainer music' or'German hit mix'; the style emerged in Europe after the Second World War as a backlash against American rock and roll. Typical schlager tracks are either sweet, sentimental ballads with a simple, catchy melody or light pop tunes. Lyrics center on love and feelings; the northern variant of schlager has taken elements from Nordic and Slavic folk songs, with lyrics tending towards melancholic and elegiac themes. Musically, schlager bears similarities to styles such as easy listening; the German word Schlager is a loanword in some other languages, where it retained its meaning of a " hit". The style has been represented at the Eurovision Song Contest and has been popular since the contest began in 1956, although it is being replaced by other pop music styles.
Over time, schlager music has shifted on to electronic music rather than generic pop music, due to its widespread use of synthesizers throughout its various implementations in recent decades. Dutch schlager is called levenslied, it is a Dutch-language subgenre of pop music. Typical levenslied lyrics treat subjects such as love and nostalgia, besides longing for sunny, exotic holiday places. A typical levenslied has catchy, simple rhythms and melodies and is structured in couplets and refrains. Traditional instruments in levenslied music are the accordion and the barrel organ: for example and Hugo; the roots of Finnish schlager date back to the interwar period and popular singers such as Georg Malmstén and Matti Jurva. A notable song was opera singer Ture Ara's "Emma" in 1929. Schlager tradition has an important place in Finnish popular music, its melodic language has influenced Finnish rock. Schlager shares its audience with Finnish tango music. A particular feature of Finnish schlager music are "translation schlagers".
Noteworthy Finnish schlager composers include Juha Vainio. According to polls of Finnish audiences, "Hopeinen kuu", recorded in Finnish by Olavi Virta and "Satulinna" are the most popular Finnish schlagers of all time; the roots of German schlager are old: the word refers to songs by Heinz Rühmann and other singing movie stars of the 1930s. One ancestor of schlager may be operetta, popular in the early twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Comedian Harmonists and Rudi Schuricke laid the foundations for this new music. Well-known schlager singers of the 1950s and early 1960s include Lale Andersen, Freddy Quinn, Ivo Robić, Gerhard Wendland, Caterina Valente, Margot Eskens and Conny Froboess. Schlager reached a peak of popularity in Austria in the 1960s and the early 1970s. From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, schlager saw an extensive revival in Germany by, for example, Guildo Horn, Dieter Thomas Kuhn and Petra Perle. Dance clubs would play a stretch of schlager titles during the course of an evening, numerous new bands were formed specialising in 1970s schlager cover versions and newer material.
In Hamburg in the 2010s, schlager fans still gathered annually by the hundreds of thousands, dressing in 1970s clothing for street parades called "Schlager Move". The Schlager Move designation is used for a number of smaller schlager music parties in several major German cities throughout the year. Germans view schlager as their country music, American country and Tex-Mex music are both major elements in schlager culture. Popular schlager singers include Michael Wendler, Roland Kaiser, Hansi Hinterseer, Jürgen Drews, Andrea Berg, Helene Fischer, Claudia Jung, Andrea Jürgens, Kristina Bach, Marianne Rosenberg, Simone Stelzer, Christian Lais, Semino Rossi, Vicky Leandros, Leonard, DJ Ötzi, Andreas Gabalier, voted best schlager singer in 2012. Stylistically, schlager continues to influence German "party pop": that is, music most heard in après-ski bars and Majorcan mass discos. Contemporary schlager is mingled with Volkstümliche Musik. If it is not part of an ironic kitsch revival, a taste for both styles of music is associated with folksy pubs, fun fairs, bowling league venues.
Between 1975 and 1981 German-style schlager became disco-oriented, in many ways merging with the mainstream disco music of the time. Singers such as Marianne Rosenberg recorded both disco hits; the song "Moskau" by German band Dschinghis Khan was one of the earliest of modern, dance-based schlager, again showing how schlager of the'70s and early'80s merged with mainstream disco and Euro-disco. Dschinghis Khan, while a disco band played disco-influen
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, the most populous city in the country. Legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister. Sweden is a unitary state divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
Playboy Playmate
A Playmate is a female model featured in the centerfold/gatefold of Playboy magazine as Playmate of the Month. The PMOM's pictorial includes nude photographs and a centerfold poster, along with a pictorial biography and the "Playmate Data Sheet", which lists her birthdate, turn-ons, turn-offs. At the end of the year, one of the twelve Playmates of the Month is named Playmate of the Year. Playmates of the Month are paid US$25,000 and Playmates of the Year receive an additional US$100,000 plus a car and a motorcycle. In addition, Anniversary Playmates are chosen to celebrate a milestone year of the magazine. Playboy encourages potential Playmates to send photos with "girl next door" appeal for consideration. In addition, "casting calls" are held in major US cities to offer opportunities for women to test for Playboy; the Playboy photographers and Hugh Hefner select which models become Playmates. The Playmate of the Year is chosen by Hugh Hefner, taking into account an annual readers' poll. According to Playboy, there is no such thing as a former Playmate because "Once a Playmate, always a Playmate".
Marilyn Monroe, featured in the first issue, was the only one to appear as "Sweetheart of the Month." The first model called a Playmate of the Month was Margie Harrison, Miss January 1954, in the second issue of Playboy. A woman may appear only once as a Playmate, but in the early years of the magazine, some models were featured multiple times. Marilyn Waltz and Janet Pilgrim are tied for the most appearances. Margie Harrison and Marguerite Empey are the only other women to appear more than once as Playmates. Under current law in most US jurisdictions, publishing nude pictures of a model younger than 18 would be a felony. However, in the early years of the magazine, laws regarding corruption of a minor were less well established. Several playmates – including Nancy Crawford, Donna Michelle, Linda Moon, Patti Reynolds and Teddi Smith – posed when they were seventeen. Elizabeth Ann Roberts – whose pictorial was called "Schoolmate Playmate" – posed when she was sixteen. Hugh Hefner and Roberts' mother were arrested as a result, but the case was subsequently dismissed because Roberts' mother had signed a statement that her daughter was eighteen before the photo shoot.
In 1979 Ursula Buchfellner posed for the German edition of Playboy when she was sixteen and subsequently posed for the American edition when she was eighteen. Dutch Playmate twins Karin and Mirjam van Breeschooten appeared at age seventeen in their country's edition of Playboy in June 1988, at eighteen, they were Misses September 1989 in the US version; some women have become Playmates in their 30s. Dolores Donlon is the oldest Playmate to date, appearing in her shoot at the age of 36. First Playmate: Margie Harrison in the second issue of Playboy. Marilyn Monroe, featured in the first issue, was the only one to appear as "Sweetheart of the Month". First Playmate to be chosen three times: Marilyn Waltz First and only month in Playboy history not have a Playmate – March 1955 First centerfold: Janet Pilgrim First fold-out centerfold: Marian Stafford First foreign-born Playmate: Marion Scott was born in Germany. Youngest Playmate featured: Elizabeth Ann Roberts appeared at age 16. First issue to feature two Playmates: Pat Sheehan and Mara Corday First Playmate to become Playmate of the Year: Ellen Stratton First Asian-American Playmate: China Lee First African-American Playmate: Jennifer Jackson First twin Playmates Mary Collinson and Madeleine Collinson First Playmate to show visible pubic hair: Liv Lindeland First Playmate to pose for a full frontal nude centerfold: Marilyn Cole First Playmate to pose for a full frontal nude centerfold with visible entire pubic hair: Bonnie Large First Hispanic-American Playmate: Ester Cordet was from Panama.
First cousins to be Playmates: Elaine Morton and Karen Elaine Morton First video Playmate: Lonny Chin was the magazine centerfold in the January 1983 issue. First mother and daughter to be Playmates: Carol Eden and her daughter Simone Eden First triplets to be Playmates: Erica and Jaclyn Dahm First Mexican-American Playmate of the Year: Raquel Pomplun First transgender Playmate: Ines Rau In the early days of Playboy, there was no official prize for the most popular Playmate at the end of each year. Although February 1954 Playmate Marilyn Waltz gained much popularity, receiving more fan mail than any other Playmate that year, she was not crowned PMOY. Neither was December 1956 Playmate Lisa Winters, named Playmate of the Year, although Joyce Nizzari, Miss December 1958, was named the "most popular" Playmate of 1958, the PMOY competition was first won in 1960 by Miss December 1959, Ellen Stratton; the 2009 PMOY
Magdalena Graaf
Engla Maria Magdalena Graaf is a Swedish model and author. In 1998, she and her sister Hannah joined together and formed the group The Graaf Sisters, who became popular with the song "You Got What I Want Baby", she was the wife of footballer Magnus Hedman and as a result has been voted the sexiest footballer's wife. Graaf was born in Gothenburg, but she grew up in Kungsängen in Stockholm County, to Swedish Pentecostal parents. In her late teens, Graaf became pregnant with her son Isak. Instead of burdening or embarrassing her religious parents, she married her Finnish gangster boyfriend Jorma whom she was living with. During this time, she was emotional abused. After Graaf was shot in the leg, she left her husband despite threats against her family, she reported him to the proper authorities. As a result, she was placed under given new identities, she and her son were moved throughout Sweden but settled in Gothenburg and was given the new names of Michaela and Ville for her son. Her husband was released from prison and he put a 50 000 SEK bounty on her and a reward for hurting her sister model, Hannah.
After her husband's indictment, the police did little to help Graaf. She did receive some help from a policewoman who would get fired for helping Graaf. To this day, Graaf has a bitter disdain for the Swedish authorities, her plight was heard by former MC gang leader who felt bad for her and decided to protect Graaf. Graaf had enough of hiding and returned home to her mother, her ex-husband decided to stop the harassment. Due to all the stress following the aftermath her ex-husband's indictment, Graaf lost a great deal of weight and suffered from lack of confidence, she started an exercise regimen. Her sister Hannah, an established model, took her to a celebrity party where she met E-Type who hit on her, she claims this boosted her confidence and being seen on the party scene with her sister landed her a modeling career. Graaf began glamour modeling. Graaf would model with her sister Hannah; the two gained noterity for appearing in countless men's magazines. The controversy catapulted lesser known Graaf's career.
She has appeared in the magazines Café, Slitz. In 1998, Graaf appeared on three separate Café covers. In 2004, The Graaf were looking for a comeback; the sisters did a pictorial for FHM magazine. The Graaf sisters became a cultural phenomenon and, by 1998 both sisters gave up glamour modeling to pursue a music career; that same year, she formed a musical duo The Graaf Sisters with Hannah and was signed to Sony BMG. The two worked with producers Christer Sandelin, Tommy Ekman, Rob'n' Raz; the record yielded the Swedish #1 hit "You Got". The duo has since been on hiatus with both women having children. In 2002, the sisters were involved in a civil suit against Mikael Brinkstierna. Brinkstierna alleged that the sisters began working with him in 1996 and that they had a management contract in which he was entitled to 25% of all revenues from the sisters' future disc sales. After the success of their first album, Brinkstierna received no money after he spent hours helping them be a success; the sisters claim that Brinkstierna gave them nothing but money and accused him of being a crook after a similar dispute Brinkstierna had with the pop group Aqua.
In March 2006, Graaf released her biography Det ska bli ett sant nöje att döda dig, where she tells about her childhood and her first, problematic marriage. The title of her book was the last thing her ex-husband Jorma said to her before she left him and fled with their son Isak. Graaf participated in the Swedish edition of Dancing with the Stars until the end of January 2009, when she was forced to quit due to a cerebral hemorrhage, she works for Postkodlotteriet and gives the winners money, Postkodsmiljonären where the main show is broadcast on TV4. In 1995, she gave birth to her first son, with her first husband. A year and a half after Isak's birth, Graaf left her husband in 1996. In 1999, Graaf married Swedish football goalkeeper Magnus Hedman; the couple had two sons named Tristan. During their early marriage, the couple lived in Scotland. After Hedman's retirement the couple resided in Stockholm. In 2006, Graaf separated from Hedman after news papers reported an alleged affair with singer Linda Bengtzing.
The couple have since divorced. Her fourth son, was born in 2011, her oldest son Isak died in an accident on August 25, 2014. She gave birth to her fifth son Louie in 2016; the Sisters made Time Magazine's List of European Heroes for their charity work. Magdalena along with Hannah have donated earnings from their modeling to aid orphanages in Nagpur in central India; the sisters maintain that they never have strayed too far from their Pentecostal upbringing and that their commitment for charity was inherited from their mother Linda Bergling who worked as a missionary in Asia and Africa. Not only have the donated money to the cause but they have built two orphanages and school. Magdelena's husband, Magnus claimed Magdalena would hits up friends for donations at parties. Official website Article about the Graaf sisters success Graaf speaking about her book
Maxim (magazine)
Maxim is an international men's magazine and launched in the UK in 1995, but based in New York City since 1997, prominent for its photography of actresses and female models whose careers are at a current peak. Maxim has a circulation of about 9 million readers each month. Maxim Digital reaches more than 4 million unique viewers each month. Maxim magazine publishes 16 editions, sold in 75 countries worldwide. Maxim has expanded into many other countries, including Australia. In 1999, MaximOnline.com was created. It contains content not included in the print version and focuses on the same general topics, along with exclusive sections such as the "Girls of Maxim" galleries and the "Joke of the Day". "Maxim Video" contains video clips of interviews, music videos, photo shoots, original content. On February 5, 2005, Maxim Radio, featuring male-oriented talk programming, debuted on Sirius Satellite Radio. Following the Sirius-XM merger in late 2008, the Maxim brand was dropped, the channel is now known as Sirius XM Stars Too.
On June 5, 2006, the magazine announced plans to build a casino on the Las Vegas Strip north of Circus Circus, but the casino plan failed after local condominium owners complained that the proposed casino would ruin their view. The land was sold to MGM Mirage. On June 15, 2007, private equity firm Quadrangle Group, along with long-time media executive Kent Brownridge, announced the acquisition of the parent company of Maxim, Blender and MaximOnline.com in the United States, under the name Alpha Media Group. As of April 23, 2009 Dennis Publishing has announced that it will no longer continue producing a print edition of Maxim in the UK, though the website for the UK version will remain. In July 2009, Maxim partnered with the UFC for the first-ever Maxim UFC Octagon Girl Search at the UFC Fan Expo. 40 girls participated in the contest, the winner was Natasha Wicks. Quadrangle Group gave up on its investment in Alpha Media Group in August 2009, making Cerberus Capital Management the majority partner.
In 2013, Alpha announced the sale of Maxim to the newly created Darden Media Group, but Darden was unable to raise the money. Calvin Darden, Jr. was charged with fraud relating to the transaction. Between 2010 and 2012, Maxim eliminated two issues, going from 12 issues a year to 10, decreased its circulation numbers by 20%, from a reported 2.5 million to only 2 million. Maximum Warrior debuted in 2011, as an online reality competition that tests ten of America's most elite military operators in ten military-inspired challenges; the videos on the Maxim app on Xbox Live. Several episodes feature Maxim's Military Advisor. Maximum Warrior is produced by Grand Street Media. On February 27, 2014, entrepreneur Sardar Biglari, the founder of Biglari Holdings and Biglari Capital, purchased Maxim. "We plan to build the business on multiple dimensions," he said at the time, "thereby energizing our readership and viewership." In September 2014 he hired Kate Lanphear, the former style director of Elle and T: The New York Times Fashion Magazine as editor, in an attempt to remake it as a luxury and fashion journal, at an annual salary, thought to be more than $700,000.
During Lanphear's tenure, the September 2015 issue featured actor Idris Elba on its cover, marking the first time that the magazine did not have a woman on the cover. Lanphear left the magazine in November 2015. In January 2016, Biglari took over as Editor-in-Chief of Maxim, though a Maxim staffer said that the new masthead title just formalizes what has always been clear: Biglari exercises full editorial control over Maxim. At one point last year, the staffer said, he decided to throw out a nearly-complete version of the December issue in order to redesign the magazine. On January 13, 2016, Gilles Bensimon joined Biglari as a special creative director. "What drew me to Maxim was Sardar's vision for the brand," said Bensimon. In 2004, the Gender Issues Centre, an on-campus feminist organization at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, protested an on-campus "Thunder Bay Boob Idol" event sponsored by Maxim and Coors Light; the Centre described Maxim as consisting of "sexist bravado and racist imagery".
In 2006, Alok Jha of The Guardian criticized Maxim for encouraging excessive alcohol consumption and sexual objectification of women. In June 2007, Israeli diplomat David Saranga invited Maxim to the country. In what came to be known as "beers and babes", the magazine did photo shoots of near-naked Israeli women who serve in the army; the campaign drew an angry reaction from lawmaker Colette Avital, a former diplomat who served as Israel's consul-general in New York City in the 1990s. Prof. John H. Brown of Georgetown University described the spread as the first event in a new branch of public diplomacy. In February 2008, Maxim was criticized by the rock band The Black Crowes for rating their upcoming CD, without hearing the entire album. Black Crowes manager Pete Angelus said, "Maxim's actions seem to lack journalistic integrity and intentionally mislead their readership." According to Crowes, the magazine stated in an email that "Of course, we always prefer to hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don’t want to ignore that aren’t available to hear, what happened with the Crowes.
It’s either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former." The magazine's editorial director James Kaminsky apologized, stating "It is Maxim's editorial policy to assign star ratings only to those albums that have been heard in their entirety. That policy was not followed in the March 2008 issue of our magazine and we apologize to our readers." Facing more criticism over rating albums with
Café (magazine)
Café is a monthly Swedish men's magazine focused on fashion and culture, including articles on food, fitness, music, sports and books. The magazine is comparable to U. S. publications such as Esquire and GQ. It is published in Sweden. Café debuted in May 1990, aimed toward the new generation of metrosexual men; the magazine was published by now-defunct Rosenudde Publishing. In December 1991, the magazine was bought out by Hachette Sweden Ltd. a subsidiary of Hachetter Filipacchi Media. The magazine is part of Aller Media AB, which acquired it from Hachetter Filipacchi Media in 2007, it is published by a subsidiary of the company in Stockholm. One of the sister magazines of Café is Svensk Damtidning. From 2003 to 2013 Markus Kylén was the editor-in-chief of Café. Jens Stenberg replaced him in the post. Due to its success in Sweden the magazine has branched out to Finland with its large Swedish-speaking audience; the circulation of Café was 20,800 copies in 2014. The first issue of Cafe featured professional soccer player Glenn Hysén.
Subsequent covers featured male actors and sports figures such as Sean Connery and Mike Tyson. By the mid-nineties, the covers predominately featured women famous Swedish models. Victoria Silvstedt has counting. Other notable celebrities who have been featured on the cover are Izabella Scorupco, Anine Bing, Pernilla Wahlgren, Carolina Gynning, Marie Serneholt, Emma Johnsson. List of men's magazines Cafe.se
TV4 (Sweden)
TV4 is a Swedish television network owned and operated by the TV4 AB, a subsidiary of the Bonnier Broadcasting Group. It started broadcasting by satellite in 1990 and, since 1992, on the terrestrial network. In 1994, TV4 remained so for a number of years; the two channels of Sveriges Television lost more viewers for a couple of years. After making schedule changes in 2001, SVT1 had the same numbers of viewers as TV4. Since 2004 the TV4 Group has been a active member of the European Broadcasting Union. TV4 was launched on 15 September 1990; the channel invested in Swedish drama series. The premiere suffered from technical faults and the drama series weren't popular with critics. In 1991, two of the channels oldest entertainment programmes premiered: the Swedish version of Jeopardy! and the Saturday night bingo show Bingolotto. Bingolotto in particular became popular; this year saw TV4 awarded a license to broadcast terrestrially. Terrestrial broadcasts started on 2 March 1992. During this year, Nyhetsmorgon started and marked the introduction of weekday breakfast television in Sweden.
During the 1990s TV4 would broadcast several popular Friday night entertainment shows such as Fångarna på fortet, Kär och galen, Tur i kärlek, På rymmen, Sikta mot stjärnorna, Småstjärnorna. They have broadcast several home-grown sitcoms such as Rena Rama Rolf and En fyra för tre as well as the soap opera Tre kronor. In the early 1990s, the TV4 Group decided to move their 7pm evening news to 7:30pm in order to compete with the most popular news programme, which, at that time, was broadcast on SVT2; this failed and the news was subsequently moved to 6:30pm. In 2004, the evening news was moved to 7pm, the status quo reinstated. In 2004, TV4 began transitioning to become a digital-only service, starting by shutting down its analogue satellite signal. On 19 September 2005, TV4 began shutting down analogue terrestrial transmissions, starting at the island of Gotland; the analogue shutoff was completed by October 2007. Since 2004, TV4 has been broadcasting a Swedish version of the internationally popular Pop Idol format.
In July 2018, it was announced that Bonnier Broadcasting is to be acquired by Telia Company for 9.2 billion SEK, thus making Telia the new owner of TV4. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the second half pending approval. TV4 offers a mix of news, drama series, entertainment, current affairs programmes, feature films and phone-in shows. News is an important part of TV4, it broadcasts 10 pm and Nyhetsmorgon in the mornings. On weekend mornings there is children's programming in Swedish. After 11 pm until Nyhetsmorgon, it shows some Swedish and English television series. After the Nyhetsmorgon ends on weekdays the Efter tio starts followed by English spoken TV series up until the news at 7pm. In the daytime on weekends there are reruns and sports programs. Main Swedish and English TV programs are broadcast up to the 10pm news. Friday nights have included family entertainment at 8pm since the early 1990s. Bingolotto occupied Saturday evenings from 1991 to 2004. TV4 moved Bingolotto to Sundays and started broadcasting feature films instead.
With the start of Deal or No Deal in 2006, family entertainment returned to Saturday nights. There are other entertainment shows on Saturday evenings. On Sunday evenings, Swedish-produced television programs are shown until 9pm when they show a movie on Saturday nights, they show a movie after the entertainment show. After about 11pm until Nyhetsmorgon starts they show reruns and some Swedish and English television series; the foreign programs are from the UK and U. S.. All foreign programmes, as well as segments of local programmes with foreign language content, are subtitled into Swedish. TV4 offers investigative journalism programmes, most notably Kalla fakta; as a part of its public service obligations, TV4 owns and operates a number of regional and local opt-out stations. When the local stations were set up, they were owned by both local investors and the TV4 Group themselves. Since the start of TV4 Uppland in 1996, the number of stations has been sixteen. Although some stations have closed and others have been set up, the total number of stations has stayed unchanged.
The TV4 Group brought out many of the local stations and became the sole owner of fifteen stations in 2001. The only independent station, TV4 Fyrstad, went bankrupt in 2003 and was replaced by TV4 Väst, owned and operated by the TV4 Group; the TV4 Group merged the stations into five regional companies and in 2004, a single company: TV4 Sverige AB. As of 2008, these are the local TV4 stations: TV4 Värmland TV4 Väst TV4 Göteborg TV4 Halland TV4 Öresund TV4 Sydost TV4 Jönköping TV4 Skaraborg TV4 Öst TV4 Stockholm TV4 Mälardalen TV4 Uppland TV4 Gävle Dalarna TV4 Mitt TV4 Västerbotten TV4 Norrbotten After the closedown of the analogue transmitters and the termination of TV4's public service obligations, the pattern of the local stations is due to a major overhaul which will see the number of local stations increase. TV4 Play is the brand used for the video on demand service offered by the TV4 Group, more to the streaming services offered on the TV4 Play website, www.tv4play.se. Content on TV4 Pl
