Bingolotto
Encyclopedia
Bingolotto is a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 highly popular primetime television game show lottery
Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize.Lottery is outlawed by some governments, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of regulation of lottery by governments...

 that was first broadcast 1989 on local TV and since 1991 nationwide on the Swedish network TV4. The show is a collaboration work between Swedish TV channel TV4, the Swedish lottery game company Folkspel and the Swedish sports life. The show premiered on January 16, 1989 on the local TV channel Kållevisionen with the highly popular Leif "Loket" Olsson as show host. Since the beginning, the show has give 14.25 billion Swedish crowns to the Swedish sports life centre.

1989–1999: Early rise, success and enormous popularity

In January 1989, Bingolotto premiered and Olsson introduced the game show to the people in the Gothenburg area. The programme became very popular in this area and 10,000 lottery tickets were sold to every episode between 1989 and 1991. In the autumn of 1990, the game show's owner and C.E.O. Gert Eklund started his collaboration with TV4 to start broadcasting the show nationwide. Olsson, who had built the game and company together with Eklund in 1988, owned a 25 percent share of the game but was bought of the company in 1999.

On October 19, 1991, Bingolotto premiered nationwide on TV4 with the highly popular Leif "Loket" Olsson as show host. The premiere episode was watched by 1.3 million viewers in Sweden, a very high and surprising viewing figure. From October 1991 to March 1992, Bingolotto had raised viewing figures from 1.3 million viewers to 2.1 million viewers. The success of the show depended mostly on the popular host Leif "Loket" Olsson, who became very popular with the viewers and attracted the audience to watch the show and buy lottery tickets.

In 1992, Loket received the television award The Lennart Hyland TV Prize for Best Male Show Host of the Year. Loket received this prize again in 1994 and 1997. In 1993, Loket received the prize "Årets Göteborgare" (Gothenburg Citizen of the Year).

In 1994, Olsson attracted 3.5 million viewers to watch every single program throughout the whole year, a record-high viewing figure. In 1995, Olsson attracted 4.5 million viewers to every programme, the highest viewing figure that has been registered in Swedish TV.

In 1999, Olsson left the show and was replaced by Lasse Kronér. The viewing figure crashed immediately down to only 900,000 viewers per programme and the viewers and fans of the show wanted Loket to return. In January 2004, Kronér was fired and Loket was asked to return briefly to fill in for him.

The price of the lottery ticket has been between 25 and 50 Swedish kronor
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...

, and in March 2005, one billion tickets had been sold since the beginning. The surplus is given to Swedish sport associations, a fact which is commonly believed to have increased the penetration of the show. 31.5 million Swedish kronor (approx £2.5 million) is the highest won prize ever in the history of Bingolotto. It was won by a woman from Vara, Sweden.

Leif "Loket" Olsson hosted the show from 1989 to 1999 (and for a short period in 2004). Since Olsson's retirement, the show has been hosted by entertainer and musician Lars Kronér, skiing athlete Gunde Svan
Gunde Svan
Gunde Svan is a former Swedish cross-country skier and auto racing driver. During his career he won a total of four gold, one silver and one bronze medals at the Winter Olympics...

, and TV-personality Rickard Olsson, of which none has been able to maintain the show's earlier popularity. A significant rise in popularity developed when the singer Lotta Engberg took over the hosting in fall 2008. From fall 2011 is the show hosting by Jan Bylund. Fore beginning the program shows in TV4, after 2008 the program is on TV4 Plus
TV4 Plus
Sjuan is a sister channel of Swedish TV4, owned by TV4 AB. The main focus of the channel is on entertainment, sports and lifestyle programmes. The channel started as TV4 Plus in 2003 but changed name to Sjuan in September 2011....

. On the 12 September 2011 change the channel name to Sjuan (The Seven).

Clips from Bingolotto are featured in the video of Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

's song "Ray of Light
Ray of Light
Ray of Light is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on March 3, 1998 by Maverick Records and distributed by Warner Bros. Records. After giving birth to her daughter Lourdes, Madonna collaborated with Patrick Leonard and William Orbit in developing the album...

", directed by Swede Jonas Åkerlund
Jonas Åkerlund
Jonas Åkerlund is a Swedish film and music video director, and drummer. He is best known for directing music videos, which are often mock forms of movie trailers and short films...

 in 1998 and in the movie Show Me Love. In both cases clips from the period when Leif "Loket" Olsson hosted the show were used.

A UK version was also produced, see Bingolotto (UK)
BingoLotto (UK)
BingoLotto was a hybrid lottery bingo style game based on the Swedish version of the same name, Bingolotto. Each week viewers with a valid gamecard had 1 in 9.5 chance of winning, however unlike the National Lottery prizes would be life-enhancing, rather than life-changing, with prizes varying from...

. Both TV programs have had as media consultant professor Charlie Medina.

Music

The programmes contains music pauses, where an artist or group appears. During the Leif "Loket" Olsson leadership era, Bingolotto was strongly dominated by dansband music
Dansband
Dansband is a Swedish term for a band that plays dansbandsmusik . Dansbandsmusik is often danced to in pairs. Jitterbug and foxtrot music are often included in this category. The music is primarily inspired by swing, schlager, country, jazz, and rock...

. Later, other popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

also has become more common.

External links

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