Fredrik Skavlan is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

 and TV personality.

From 1998 to 2007 he hosted Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

's most popular talk show Først & sist

Først & sist

Først & sist was a Norwegian talk show and was the largest in the Nordic countries. It was hosted by Fredrik Skavlan and aired on NRK.The show first aired in 1998 and was broadcast every Friday until its finale in 2007...

(First & Last), which attracted more than one million viewers every Friday evening. He won the 1999 Norwegian Television Award

Gullruten

Gullruten is an annual award for the Norwegian TV business, founded in 1998 by Norske Film- og TV-produsenters forening. The awarding committee has representatives from the major national TV companies, NRK, TV2, TV3 and TVNorge...

 for best host. After taking a break from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation he was persuaded to host his own show for SVT

Sveriges Television

Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...

 in the spring of 2009, "Skavlan

Skavlan

Skavlan is a Norwegian-Swedish television talk show hosted by Norwegian journalist Fredrik Skavlan. It premiered in Sweden on Sveriges Television in January 2009, and the first guests to appear on the show were former Prime Minister of Sweden Göran Persson and his wife Anitra Steen. On 8 May 2009,...

". The show was a huge success and Skavlan went on to win the Swedish Television Award

Kristallen

Kristallen is the official Swedish television award, administrated by the foundation Det svenska tevepriset. It was created in 2005 by television producers SVT, TV3, TV4, Kanal 5 and UR.- The trophy :...

 for Best Television Host, the first Norwegian to do so. In the autumn of 2009 the program started broadcasting on both the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and SVT

Sveriges Television

Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...

.

Skavlan originally worked as a journalist and cartoonist for several Norwegian newspapers, including Morgenbladet

Morgenbladet

Morgenbladet is a Norwegian weekly newspaper. It was founded in 1819 by the book printer Niels Wulfsberg, and was the country's first daily newspaper. For a long time, it was also the country's biggest newspaper. It was closed down by the German Wehrmacht during World War II...

 and Dagbladet

Dagbladet

Dagbladet is Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper, and the third largest newspaper overall with a circulation of 105,255 copies in 2009, 18,128 papers less than in 2008. The editor in chief is Lars Helle....

. He has also illustrated several books, including Unni Lindell

Unni Lindell

Unni Maria Lindell is a Norwegian writer. She is best known for her crime novels , but has also written a collection of poems and several children's and young adult books....

's children's book Nifse Nella og nattskolen (Spooky Stella and the Night School) (2008).

Notable guests on his TV show include Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

, Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

, Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...

, Desmond Tutu

Desmond Tutu

Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...

, Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

, Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams

Robert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...

, Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, Liv Ullmann

Liv Ullmann

Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman...

, Rihanna

Rihanna

Robyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...

, Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

, Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard

Edward John "Eddie" Izzard is a British stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime...

, Robyn

Robyn

Robin Miriam Carlsson , better known by her stage name Robyn, is a Swedish recording artist, singer, and songwriter. Robyn became known in the late nineties for her worldwide dance-pop hit "Do You Know " from her debut album Robyn Is Here . She co-wrote the song "Du gör mig hel igen" for...

, Pelé

Pelé

However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...

, Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

, Mads Mikkelsen

Mads Mikkelsen

' is a Danish actor.-Life and career:Mikkelsen was born in the Østerbro area of Copenhagen, the son of Bente Christiansen and Henning Mikkelsen, a cab driver. He is the brother of actor Lars Mikkelsen. After attending Århus Theatre School, he made his film debut in the movie Pusher...

, Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler

Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

, John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

, Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf

Michael Lee Aday , better known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor...

, Wyclef Jean

Wyclef Jean

Wyclef Jean is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country...

, Terry Jones

Terry Jones

Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....

, Melody Gardot

Melody Gardot

Melody Gardot is a Grammy-nominated American singer, writer and musician in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, though she considers herself a "citizen of the world". She has been influenced by such blues and jazz artists as Judy Garland, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Stan Getz and George...

, Marianne Faithful, Vince Vaughn

Vince Vaughn

Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...

, and Shakira

Shakira

Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...

, among others.

External links

• Official website