Why the Nielsens would hate Sweden

One of the things that still sometimes surprises me about living in Sweden is the smooth and subtle way that radio stations, TV shows, and other media forms seem to come and go in the wink of an eye.

See, I have dim memories of the US mayhem of a TV show moving to a new slot in which you would be bombarded with commercials for weeks at a time 'Law & Order Traffic Cops is Moving to Monday nights this May,' 'Don't miss LOTC at it's new time, Monday's at 9 this May,' followed by a series of newspaper articles about whether or not the moving of LOTC to Monday nights indicates an attempt of the network to perform stronger against another network, or a sign that LOTC is on its way out the door.

But in Sweden? Let's say you watched the first 2 episodes of LOTC on Tuesday nights. Then you might be hanging out a month later going 'Hey, whatever happened to that show LOTC?' And then you realize either you missed that it had moved to Monday nights, or there was a handball championship that took that slot for a few weeks, or it just went on one of the typical mid-season two month hiatus which they like to call 'the end of the season'.

So last weekend, The Swede and I were treated to some great news when we flipped on the TV after LO finally went to sleep. There was a screen that announced that we were no longer getting MTV in our house – unless we wanted to pay extra. And then, as I sat down to write this blog entry, I realized we got a new TV channel in its place. This strange Channel 11 – which appears to be a channel where reality TV shows go where they die.

Did we know anything about this? No. Was there anything anywhere that said this was happening? Not even our cable company sent us anything.

I did a quick search for Channel 11 and even the internets don't seem to have heard about it.

I don't really mind these little eccentricities in Swedish television land – despite the fact that I blog so much about it, I really don't watch that much TV and the shows I do like I make sure I catch elsewhere – so I don't have to stress about making sure I am anywhere at a certain day/time.