Jostein Pedersen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jostein Pedersen is a Norwegian commentator and "music intelligencia". Jostein was born on August 11th, 1959, in the small hamlet Dønna in Nordland country, in the north of Norway. Jostein's current marital status is single, divorced from his former wife.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Pop DJ
Since high school, Jostein has worked within the music industry. He initially worked as a regular vendor at the local record shop. He slowly moved up in the system, becoming a successful music journalist. From journalism, he advanced to become a disc jockey at several new, local radio stations. After a brief interlude, he joined a new record company, Non Stop Music, where he sold records for new and more experienced artists, including popular rock icon Åge Aleksandersen and the woman who later became the best selling female artist of Norway, Sissel Kyrkjebø.
[edit] Major radio star
Joistein Pedersen had his real break-through when Norway's only national radio broadcaster at that time, NRK, asked him to work with NRK on something which at that time was completely new: radio emissions at night hours. Soon he was head-hunted once again and started working in one of Norwegian radio history's most popular radio programmes —Nitimen. He was the youngest broadcaster and he expresses that during these years he was in a constant state of happiness; it was a dream come true. His next job offer was within the television broadcasting. His major task was a responsibility for the shows on TV during the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer during February 1994.
[edit] Eurovision commentator
Later in 1994, Jostein had his debut as what he owes the majority of his fame to. He was a Eurovision commentator for the Norwegian broadcaster, NRK. He was the Norwegian counterpart to the UK's Terry Wogan. While Terry Wogan is biased against all the nations' entries, except the British ones, Jostein Pedersen is known for his "mean-spirited" comments on the Swedish entries and entrants. He keeps up the long tradition of rivalry and sarcastic comments and jokes between Norway and Sweden. In 1995, he did not comment on the contest, but ever since 1996, he has been a permanent ingredient in the popular, annual show, and has raised the level of entertainment several degrees since the old, bygone days. The Swedish tabloids have occasionally been in a state of outrage because of his sour comments, and at least once demanded his removal as the Norwegian commentator. The Norwegian sense of humour and irony is not appreciated at the other side of the border.
Besides his juicy and sometimes controversial commentary, Jostein is also known for his dark and masculine, yet pleasant and tranquilizing voice, which has aided his rise in popularity. Since 2004, Jostein has also been a side commentator in the Melodi Grand Prix, the Norwegian Eurovision nationals.
In 2006, NRK announced that it would not renew his contract for another year, and thus he would not be commenting the Eurovision. No reason was given. It was announced that Per Sundnes would follow Pedersen as the new commentator.
Jostein lives in London.
[edit] Trivia
Jostein Pedersen is also the high protector of the association CANTAMO, which describes itself as "the only Norwegian-Croatian Melodi Grand Prix association in the world".
In the BBC/KEO films television series Blizzard: Race to the Pole, Pedersen provided the voice-over for Roald Amundsen.
Pedersen came on last place in the Norwegian version of Dancing with the Stars, in Norway called Skal vi danse.
