Talang 2007 was the first season of the show Talang, the Swedish version of Got Talent. Talang 2007 had its premiere on 13 April 2007 and ended on 1 June 2007. The winner of the show was Zillah & Totte. This season was hosted by Peppe Eng, and the judges were: Tobbe Blom, Hanna Hedlund and Bert Karlsson.

Popularity

The show became an instant success and was consistently one of the top three television shows in Sweden each week. and shown during and after each performance. Public voting started when the program aired on Friday and ended at midnight Sunday. Unlike the American TV series, where the public voted for free by calling a toll free number, the Swedish audience paid 5.70 Swedish kronor (June 2007, approximately US$0.82) for each call they made. After the second semi-final aired, TV4 surprised the contestants by announcing that two wild card finalists would be chosen from the eliminated semi-finalists. One wild card finalist was chosen by the jury whilst the other was chosen by public vote. With only two days to prepare for the final competition, the wild card finalists had little chance of winning. For the final program (episode 8), the winner was chosen only by public vote. Despite that, the jury still voted and commented on each performance. Voting started when the program started at 8 pm and concluded at some undisclosed time during the 1.5 hr long program. The voting procedure potentially gave an unfair advantage to contestants who performed early in the show. Indeed, the winner of Talang 2007 performed first. Furthermore, all of the phone numbers for each contestant were published before the show, allowing the public to vote for their favorite contestant before they had given their final performance.

Auditions Summary

Semi-finalists By Jury

Non Semi-Finalist By Jury

Eliminated By Jury

Semi-finals Summary

During the three semi-finals (episodes 5–7), two finalists were chosen from each program, one by the jury and another by public vote. The public voted for a contestant by phoning a specific telephone number, which was published before the show aired.

Semi-final 1

Semi-final 2

Semi-final 3

Final

Winner

Zillah & Totte Totte is Zillah's three-year-old (stuffed animal) chimpanzee. The duo talk, sing, and perform magic tricks together for their comical performances. For the winning performance, Zillah & Totte sang Herreys "Diggi-loo diggi-ley" on a stage with large letters that spelled TOTTE. In the middle of the song, Zillah fell backwards over the letters and Totte blamed her for destroying their chance to win. "Now you owe me a million!" said Totte to Zillah before first demanding the audience to vote for him and then sweetly asking for their vote. The strategy worked as they not only won the jury's votes but also votes of the public.

Contestants

Many of the contestants in Talang 2007 are professional entertainers, have family ties in the entertainment business, had previously won talent competitions, or were completing an education specializing in their art form. Participating on the show gave them free publicity for their business and/or art form. A couple of contestants were requested by TV4 or a jury member to participate in the show.

Controversy and criticism

To make the show appeal to a wide audience, the producers attempted to change the jury's decision during the filming of episode 3. TV4 wanted a mix of males and females to continue from the auditions whereas Karlsson felt that quality should determine whether a contestant continued or not. During the semi-finals, the jury intentionally only selected adult competitors to continue to the finals since they thought the public would only vote for children and the final program would become a children's show. Debates in the TV4 Talang 2007 forum about the public's tendency to vote for child acts and whether adults and children should compete in the same show were ongoing throughout the entire season. The host, Peppe Eng, had to rush the jury through their comments for each contestant to keep the show on schedule. Furthermore, TV4 sabotaged the show's climax by showing the name of the winner to the TV audience before the winner was announced; when the card containing the winner's name was removed from the envelope, the winner's name faced the camera.

Footnotes