Matthias Peter Schweger (born 1966 in Vienna, Austria) is an award-winning[1][2][3] director, writer, and producer for television. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded and managed internationally successful music projects Edelweiss and Bingoboys, as well as music video production companies, and helped launch Germany's first music video channel, Viva Television. He has also worked as a creative consultant to European top executives, including Dietrich Mateschitz, CEO and founder of Red Bull, and Gerhard Zeiler, CEO of RTL Group.
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When working for Austria's national Top 40 station Hitradio Ö3 he met fellow producer Martin Neumayer, and together they created the musical project Edelweiss, a unique cross-over between Austrian folk music and US hip-hop.[4] Subsequently, the ABBA cover "Edelweiss, Bring Me Edelweiss[5][6]" became a world-wide multi-million selling smash-hit with Warner Music, which was followed up by the Enterprise-spoof album Starship Edelweiss.
In 1991 Matthias Schweger signed another Austrian music project, Bingoboys, with Atlantic Records in New York. The first single How To Dance peaked at No.1 in the US Billboard Club Play,[7] and was followed by an album The Best of Bingoboys[8]. Noteworthy is the dance-instructor in the video to "How to dance", whose word-bite "Now, here comes the music" has been used in many trailers, commercials and artbreaks.
In 1987, Schweger moved from Austrian national radio to television (ORF), as part of the founding team of "X-Large", a new weekly 90-minute youth-magazine format, which later branched out into a family of "X"-branded shows on national pubcaster ORF 1, providing several hours of previously unavailable content per week. After initially hosting the show, he moved on to present and produce an ironic weekly showbiz segment called "Pop News", which stayed on-air for more than six years. Schweger became more involved in directing, producing, and developing new formats, and creating award-winning screen designs and opening titles. He left ORF to help launch Germany's first 24/7 music video channel Viva Television,
In 1997 he was hired by Brent Hansen, President MTV Europe, to help with the regionalization of MTV Europe for the German language market, which was a direct reaction to the success of Viva Television.
In 1988, when Matthias Schweger was a resident of West London, Mag. Kathrin Zechner, then Head of Programming for ORF (Austrian Telvision) brought him in to develop and oversee a new weekly programming slot on ORF channel 1 named "Nitebox", which became a ground-breaking and award-winning innovation.
Matthias Schweger started to direct music videos in 1987 with Bring Me Edelweiss, shot on 16mm film without video assist or time-code slate. Together with Austrian music-video pioneers Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher of DoRo Productions he founded Department M.[9]
Schweger oversaw the creative development process for over 120 music videos,[10][11] and also taking the director's chair for classics including Edelweiss, Bingoboys, Germanic icons like Nina Hagen, Udo Lindenbergh, Extrabreit, Culture Beat, and the trash-smash Shut up and sleep with me.
Schweger was hired[12] to consult Dietrich Mateschitz, CEO and founder of Red Bull. The project Matthias Schweger headed was entitled "Red Bull Network", and included the creative, strategic, and technological planning of a global multi-media network featuring Red Bull Content.[13] After almost three years, most of the findings have been shelved in favor of an "Alpen-Donau-Adria" niche channel called Servus TV.