Ebook: Sex, såpor och svenska krusbär: Television i konkurrens

The launch of TV3 on New Year's Eve 1987 heralded a change in mentality that affected not only television but the entire Swedish population. Commercial television quickly changed the norms of what was acceptable, public television had to keep up and the audience was on board.

What happened during the first tumultuous years of competition? We were inundated with trivia, nonsense and gimmicks, busy commercial breaks and spinning wheels of fortune. Celebrity culture was spreading. The cameras of the reality shows didn't shy away from anything. Sex and violence became more marketable than ever. Who doesn't recognize media decay?

Well, what really happened to television during those years? Was everything really so stultifying, degrading and demoralizing? And what happened to culture and children's programs, documentaries and drama?

Sex, Soaps and Swedish Gooseberries is a witty and serious history of how channels, genres and programs changed, were created or existed when the old TV monopoly was dissolved. A fascinating contemporary picture of motifs, patterns and people. Leif Furhammar is a film professor, a well-known TV columnist in Dagens Nyheter, and a two-time Gold Bagge Award-winning author of a number of popular and critically acclaimed books on film and TV.